Running a café? All you do is saunter around all day with no worries!

I must admit to being a little disappointed. I had promised myself that this year would be different. No matter how busy things were in the café, I would be more organised and maintain enough time to write a weekly post for this blog.
Well, two whole months since my last blog post, all I can say is 'So much for that!'

Béile le Chéile has been open for over a month and it's been quite the whirlwind ever since. It's taken me all this time to get back into the rhythm of cooking, baking, ordering, organising staff and the general rushing about that is running a café.

That's why I laughed out loud when I read the results of a survey in The Irish Times last weekend. They asked random people what they thought the best jobs in the world might be and one person was quoted as saying:
'I'd like to run a café. You'd saunter around all day with no worries.'

Oh, how I laughed. It's funny that people think that all you have to do to run a successful café is turn up in the morning, turn on the coffee machine and start serving customers. They really have no idea of how much work goes on behind the scenes.

In a way, that's testament to the good work done by so many people who work in the food industry. Like serene swans who are swimming furiously under the surface, they make it look simple. The relaxed smiles on their faces as they serve up delicious food belies the amount of hard work and effort they've put into making it. 

One day, I hope to become someone who makes running a café look simple. And I actually think I'm getting there. This time last year, I was hardly sleeping at night as all I could do was worry about what I'd got myself into and my waking hours away from the café were spent in floods of tears because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work facing me every day.

But this is not at all how I feel this year. I'm sleeping well. There have been no tears. I feel much more under control and am far happier. I'm still daunted by the thoughts of high summer and the amount of work involved in making a visit to Béile le Chéile the enjoyable experience I'd love for it to be for every single customer. But I think that I can do it.

One day, someone will look at me and think I've got the dream job. Sauntering around without a worry... Yeah, that'll be me.