There is just one week of the season left to go, and it's all so wonderfully busy. It's hard to believe that next Sunday afternoon I'll be able to run around the building yelling "coo-eee" without disturbing anyone (apologies until then). Things have undoubtedly been made more 'interesting' with five days of not being able to access our computer system. We took bets on when the new router would be delivered, and even invented the new sport of picnic bench rolling (risk assessment still pending) to pass the time. I'm not sure it's a sight that the Parcel Force delivery driver is used to seeing on a Friday afternoon. I think we managed admirably (sans computer), and it was just another example of how well we respond to all different types of crises. Here follows a brief conversation which took place after a minor incident (paper cut sized) occurred.
"I have Star Wars plasters?"
"No, Ki-Ki. I don't want to find Obi-Wan Kenobi in my porridge."
"Well. It would be more exciting than seeing the face of Jesus in the butter."
"No."
And that was that. Back to work as if nothing had happened at all.
There has been the odd occasion however when that is most definitely not the case. On one particularly busy evening Mick, who was on reception, seemed to be getting into a spot of bother. I walked out of the kitchen to see if everything was alright, and found him knee deep (quite literally) in streams of till roll. I managed to ask what on earth had happened before starting to cry with laughter. "This till roll is too big for the new PDQ machine, so I had to try and take some of it out, and, well.......!" Later on that evening I asked Mick how he was feeling on a scale from 1 to 100 (with 1 being pretty miserable, and 100 being other worldly). I don't think he quite understood the magnitude of the scale because he answered laughing, without giving it any real thought, "6, but rising." I doubt that Mick is ever below an 80 on cheerfulness. But just in case he was being serious, I told him a joke to lighten the mood:
A football fan asked René Descartes a question.
"Will Sunderland stay in the Premier League this season?"
"I don't think so."
And Descartes disappeared in a puff of logic.
I enquired as to whether Mick would miss me over the winter. "Yes. But we will still be able to talk to you, once you've set up that new communication device!" I have got three weeks work in November at YHA Borrowdale (very happy/excited). How exactly is a bit of a mystery to me, though; I forgot to mention at my interview how much I like writing the fridge temperatures in the kitchen diary (especially when fridge 2 is 3° and fridge 3 is 2°. You really have to concentrate then). They must have decided that I have sufficient skills aside from that. Anyway...as Borrowdale is, roughly speaking, on the other side of Scafell Pike to Eskdale, I was telling Rachel of my plan to attach lots of yogurt pots to an enormous piece of string that would stretch from one hostel to another (and we could use it to talk to each other). I asked her if she thought it would work, to which she replied, "what could possibly go wrong?!" She also helpfully pointed out that it might just be easier to use the telephone.
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