formerdomestic

the nugget factory - and then you would pay them.

Morning: turn off the alarms, sort the mail, lay new fires if they used any of the fire places the night before, squeeze oranges for oj, make coffee, set the breakfast table, lay out the mail in holders and place them at everyone's spots at the table, let the dogs out, take the dishes back to the kitchen when they are done, find out what the lunch menu is, polish any silver they used at breakfast and put at away for the next day, bring out any silver and porcelain that the kitchen needs for lunch, check the drinks and snack tables, coffee break, walk the dogs again.

Lunch: make more coffee for lunch, set the table for lunch, deliver the silver and porcelain to the kitchen, bring the food up from the kitchen to the dining room, serve at the sideboard for the first part of lunch, when they finish, clean up, check menu for dinner, put away lunch silver and porcelain, get out whatever the kitchen needs for dinner, lunch, odd jobs (anything from changing the flag to running a chair into the upholsterer), leave vases out for the gardener to put fresh flowers in, long break.

Dinner: back in uniform at 5pm, deliver the flowers that the gardener left, deliver laundry from laundry rooms to bedrooms, deliver the silver and porcelain to the kitchen, set the table, start the fire in the anteroom (for after dinner), check chocolates and drinks in anteroom, check the breakfast table to see if linens need changing, pull out linens for the dinner table (for after dinner), serve the meal, eat staff meal when they have dessert, clean up the dining room after staff meal, clean porcelain and silver from dinner and put it back in the strong room, set alarm for strong room, pull their friends' cars up to the front door if they had guests, set alarms at 10pm, go home.

Rinse and repeat.

You do call them by their title (you grace for a duke), you do wait for them to come down the stairs if you are going up. One time the duchess walked into our coffee break to tell someone something and we all stood up when she came in (I did because everyone else did). But they often drive themselves places, the kids are like normal kids, they don't dress in expensive clothing on normal days, they let their couches get worn out before they send them for upholstering.

We never called them masters - just "their graces". Their day, from what I can tell, was wake up, have breakfast with the kids, he would go to the estate office and do estate stuff, she would go to her office (in the house) and do e-mails etc., they come in for lunch, whatever they want in the aft, and evenings mostly around the house doing whatever. The kids were all school-aged, so their schedules were hectic. They know the rest of the house operates on a strict schedule so they kind of try to keep on schedule. The cook from 30 or so years before, so the story goes, once yelled at the duke and his whole hunting party for showing up for dinner an hour late - and he didn't get fired because they liked his cooking too much!

I went looking, but only got as far as the wine cellar.