Get Ready's got ready!

I've been cycling past this beautifully decorated shop-front for a few days now and finally concluded that it looks better on my way in to work than it does on my way home, so I stopped off this morning to bag this.
A couple of minutes later I passed the cyclist I pass every morning and whom I have trained to give me a cheery smile & greeting. “Morning!” grin “You're late!” was this morning's longer than usual offering. “I know!” I replied, but by then we were far enough past each other for me to explain the reason.

2010: I realise I missed a bit yesterday so a quick back-track. Apologies. One of the local all-year-round resident ex-pats was making a reasonable living for himself caring for the properties of the rich and famous during their absences. In fact he was doing precious little and charging a fortune, so the rich-and-famous began looking around for an alternative and hit upon us. The spouse accepted a job as “Villa Manager” for 10€/hour and for that fee he was expected to phone up tradesmen and get quotations for jobs that needed to be done, liaise with the owner, award the contract and watch paint dry. It was assumed that the Villa Manager's wife would do all the cleaning and laundry for 5€/hour even when the villa was let out commercially for the entire summer, and she would fit all that in between one guest family leaving at 10am and the next family arriving at 4pm. This had effectively promoted him to line manager and demoted me to staff. The first “client” was so impressed by our “team” that he began extolling our virtues to other members of his class and more contracts were accepted by my “boss”.
One of them was decent enough to offer me an equal wage and so the originator of the deal was forced to match the contract. But I was not at all happy cleaning ovens for people who cook for fun and walk away.