The lights in the staffroom are terrible. The energy saving light bulbs seem to be saving energy by no actually illuminating anything, and the only saving grace is the lamp that stands near the window, which manages to single-handedly illuminate the entire room. It's the one thing that I would change about KISC if I had the opportunity; I love the work, the food is good, and the people are all wonderful, but my God the staffroom is dingy in the evenings!
The evenings are getting colder now; down to -6 on some nights. I only know this because Mum and Dad have just visited and I saw the temperature in the rental car they had for the trip. It was lovely to see them, and it also meant that I finally made it out of the valleys and into a real city- Bern. It's a beautiful city, though I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the architecture; some bits were very German, but there were some bits that you could convince yourself were Italian if it hadn't been for the freezing cold. I also managed to purchase (finally) a soft-shell jacket, at a very reasonable price, so the whole trip was really rather nice! However, they have now gone home again, leaving at 5am this morning to get the plane (and in typical Dad style, Dad took the room key with him!) They've taken some of my clothes home with them, so hopefully my bag should actually fit all my stuff in it properly for the return journey instead of bulging out at every angle, threatening to burst like an overstuffed pillow if I so much as look at it wrong. And also, them going home marks the two-thirds point of my stay here at KISC.
I am due home on the 20th December, staying for an additional 10 days as a helper while the new Shorties are trained up and some of the long-term staff are also trained up (apparently they need training too, and are not just born with the skills they need as it sometimes seems!). It's a strange period of time, because I'm unsure of whether to start reminiscing about the good times had in preparation for the journey home, or whether I should still be thinking that I have ages until I'm leaving this fantastic place. There is just over a month left of my time here; in some ways that is a long time (or will be if I start preparing to leave) and in other ways it's still quite a long time to go. In the meantime I'll just settle for cracking on with work. Two days in a row of catering this week, and despite my earlier grumbles in past posts about catering it has been a lot of fun. Wednesday morning saw me completely on my own, pottering around the kitchen washing up the three spoons that got used at breakfast and making what was (apparently) a very successful orange sponge cake for Pol's birthday. Today it's been me and Rikke, and after a devastatingly uneventful morning, in which the Spanish Omelet still managed to be about 10 minutes late due to the egg refusing to cook, we are looking at whipping up some soup and sweet and sour pork for dinner. Then hopefully this evening we shall be watching the Lord of the Rings (because any spare three hours in your life can hardly be filled with anything more suitable) and then, this weekend, I have a very exciting job. In the village this weekend there is some sort of fair going on, and KISC is having a large black German tent with a fire and some games. And I get to help run it! How cool is that?! I can't decide whether I am more excited about the tent or the fire or what, but I am very much looking forward to it, before getting back to work at the centre next week.
That's about all for now, I think I'll just read a bit more of my book before I get back in the kitchen...
No comments:
Post a Comment