Christmas, New Year's and All That
I've had browny-yellow Christmases but green? Come on!
Well that festive season has come and gone, which means things will hopefully get back to normal. The weeks leading up to it have been quite a whirlwind for me, especially that I'm in a busy industry in which I have no previous experience. But we all survived.
On Christmas Eve I worked until about 8:00pm. The kitchen was closed for the night shortly after that, and the chef cooked the five of us that had worked a wonderful steak, with a specialty potato, rosemary, spinach and other nice things. He also, along with the two managers, gave us much commendation for doing a good job through the busy weeks prior. It is definitely nice to be told you're appreciated (while digesting a free gourmet meal).
Later that night I made a phone call to my family, who were gathered in Moose Jaw for Christmas. It was great that I could call one number and speak to all of them. This was the first Christmas I've spent away from family, so it was indeed a strange thing to be talking from such a distance. Nevertheless I was in good spirits, looking forward to the next few days of festivities.
On Christmas Day, John picked me up at the house around 11:00 and brought me to their home in Findern. It was great to get out of the city. The traffic was quite calm. Marian gave her Christmas greetings when I arrived, as did Penny, their little terrier, who was decked out in a flashing Merry Christmas collar. We exchanged some gifts. I gave them a bottle of wine and some chocolates. They gave me a little taste of home, a bottle of Canadian Club, seemingly the only rye whiskey available in England.
After enjoying a nip of sherry, we ate a lovely turkey meal, with colourful steamed vegetables, stuffing and cranberries. The traditional Christmas pudding followed. Christmas in England isn't complete without Christmas crackers. I ended up with a tiny deck of cards and a set of small screwdrivers, and we all got a paper crown and sheet of bad jokes and trivia of course.
The weather was mild so we headed to the Arboretum in Derby. I had been told that it was recently redesigned and was keen to have a look. After a short walk through there, John drove through Pear Tree, to show me the school where he had been the headmaster and where Adam had attended years ago when I first began writing to him. Back at the house we enjoyed a nice light tea and then gorged ourselves on Christmas desserts: trifle, stolen, and Christmas cake. By 9:00pm I was back in Nottingham.
On Boxing Day Tom, his dad, brother and little sister picked me up around 11:30 and we headed off toward Leicestershire. The weather was nice and the drive was only about an hour or less. At the end of the journey we were in a small village called Hungarton. Tom's family's house is quite large, having been in his stepmother's family for many years. I later found out it was built in 1769. That would explain the six-foot doorways. We enjoyed a nice lunch, opened some Christmas presents (they even got me some beer and socks), watched some movies, and then had a very nice lamb supper. The family were very friendly and incredibly welcoming. It was a really relaxing day. We gathered around the telly in the evening, and enjoyed some nightcaps before heading off to bed.
In the morning I heard the sound of the bell on the church tower next door and a set of hooves clip-clopping down the gravel road outside the window. People waking up in that room two hundred years prior might have heard the same sounds. After a bit of toast and orange squash we loaded up the car and headed back to Nottingham.
After a few shifts at work it was New Year's Eve. The restaurant was having a New Year's dinner, much like the Christmas meal, only with more exotic and expensive ingredients. The meal sold for a whopping £62.50 (CDN$130) for three courses (and that doesn't include a drink). Needless to say everything had be dealt with delicately. Plates and bowls had to be gleaming white. It went off without a hitch, though numbers were not as high as we would have hoped. The kitchen was cleaned and closed by 11:15pm.
We joined our co-workers down in the bar for some drinks. Just before midnight all of the staff were behind the bar with our complimentary glasses of champagne. The TV screen showed Big Ben as everyone in the bar counted down to the hour. A couple of bartenders shot off confetti cannons into the crowd as London's expensive fireworks display showed on screen.
After the bar closed the staff hung around for an hour or two and a handful of us headed over to another bar that was apparently open until 7:00am. There I paid the highest cover I've ever paid to get into a mediocre bar that didn't even have live music; a whopping (sorry for using that adjective again) £10. So I probably would have been wiser to head home before going there as I didn't last much more than an hour before trodding off home around 5:00am.
Since then I've done little more than sleep. I just need to get through the next eight days and I'll be on a plane to Poland. In the meantime I'll be spending what spare time I have learning key words and phrases and researching where to go and what to see.
Na zdrowie.
Well that festive season has come and gone, which means things will hopefully get back to normal. The weeks leading up to it have been quite a whirlwind for me, especially that I'm in a busy industry in which I have no previous experience. But we all survived.
On Christmas Eve I worked until about 8:00pm. The kitchen was closed for the night shortly after that, and the chef cooked the five of us that had worked a wonderful steak, with a specialty potato, rosemary, spinach and other nice things. He also, along with the two managers, gave us much commendation for doing a good job through the busy weeks prior. It is definitely nice to be told you're appreciated (while digesting a free gourmet meal).
Later that night I made a phone call to my family, who were gathered in Moose Jaw for Christmas. It was great that I could call one number and speak to all of them. This was the first Christmas I've spent away from family, so it was indeed a strange thing to be talking from such a distance. Nevertheless I was in good spirits, looking forward to the next few days of festivities.
On Christmas Day, John picked me up at the house around 11:00 and brought me to their home in Findern. It was great to get out of the city. The traffic was quite calm. Marian gave her Christmas greetings when I arrived, as did Penny, their little terrier, who was decked out in a flashing Merry Christmas collar. We exchanged some gifts. I gave them a bottle of wine and some chocolates. They gave me a little taste of home, a bottle of Canadian Club, seemingly the only rye whiskey available in England.
After enjoying a nip of sherry, we ate a lovely turkey meal, with colourful steamed vegetables, stuffing and cranberries. The traditional Christmas pudding followed. Christmas in England isn't complete without Christmas crackers. I ended up with a tiny deck of cards and a set of small screwdrivers, and we all got a paper crown and sheet of bad jokes and trivia of course.
The weather was mild so we headed to the Arboretum in Derby. I had been told that it was recently redesigned and was keen to have a look. After a short walk through there, John drove through Pear Tree, to show me the school where he had been the headmaster and where Adam had attended years ago when I first began writing to him. Back at the house we enjoyed a nice light tea and then gorged ourselves on Christmas desserts: trifle, stolen, and Christmas cake. By 9:00pm I was back in Nottingham.
On Boxing Day Tom, his dad, brother and little sister picked me up around 11:30 and we headed off toward Leicestershire. The weather was nice and the drive was only about an hour or less. At the end of the journey we were in a small village called Hungarton. Tom's family's house is quite large, having been in his stepmother's family for many years. I later found out it was built in 1769. That would explain the six-foot doorways. We enjoyed a nice lunch, opened some Christmas presents (they even got me some beer and socks), watched some movies, and then had a very nice lamb supper. The family were very friendly and incredibly welcoming. It was a really relaxing day. We gathered around the telly in the evening, and enjoyed some nightcaps before heading off to bed.
In the morning I heard the sound of the bell on the church tower next door and a set of hooves clip-clopping down the gravel road outside the window. People waking up in that room two hundred years prior might have heard the same sounds. After a bit of toast and orange squash we loaded up the car and headed back to Nottingham.
After a few shifts at work it was New Year's Eve. The restaurant was having a New Year's dinner, much like the Christmas meal, only with more exotic and expensive ingredients. The meal sold for a whopping £62.50 (CDN$130) for three courses (and that doesn't include a drink). Needless to say everything had be dealt with delicately. Plates and bowls had to be gleaming white. It went off without a hitch, though numbers were not as high as we would have hoped. The kitchen was cleaned and closed by 11:15pm.
We joined our co-workers down in the bar for some drinks. Just before midnight all of the staff were behind the bar with our complimentary glasses of champagne. The TV screen showed Big Ben as everyone in the bar counted down to the hour. A couple of bartenders shot off confetti cannons into the crowd as London's expensive fireworks display showed on screen.
After the bar closed the staff hung around for an hour or two and a handful of us headed over to another bar that was apparently open until 7:00am. There I paid the highest cover I've ever paid to get into a mediocre bar that didn't even have live music; a whopping (sorry for using that adjective again) £10. So I probably would have been wiser to head home before going there as I didn't last much more than an hour before trodding off home around 5:00am.
Since then I've done little more than sleep. I just need to get through the next eight days and I'll be on a plane to Poland. In the meantime I'll be spending what spare time I have learning key words and phrases and researching where to go and what to see.
Na zdrowie.
posted by Mark Bauche at 12:52 PM
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