Simply (just) Red - My First 'Day on The Green'

With a concert looming, a lot of people were working very hard, myself included. On Friday Ana joined me and Sascha and came to work at Rochford after working four days at her own job. I didn't get to see either very much that day as I was busy working with Richard and a couple of others, putting up fences on the green in front of the stage and all around the winery as well as other manly stuff. It wasn't a long day but I continued working outside on Saturday morning so the days are a little muddled in my head.

I got off work at around 5:30 PM, but ended up waiting for Sascha to do some paperwork until at least sundown (somewhere closer to 8 o'clock). We had McDonald's for our late dinner.

On Saturday the three of us were on the move very early and I was feeling very tired, mostly because of the physical nature of the work I had been doing. We set up some takeaway food and wine marquees (large tents) before getting to eat a staff breakfast. Even though it was a concert day with the gates opening at around 2 PM there were a lot of wine tour customers around noon which employed the wine tasting people as well as the waiters, the chefs and the bartenders.

After tying some bricks to protect the marquees from flying away and putting up some signs I was able to escape the outside work and get behind the bar. I was working with Louise and we were in charge of the bar. The bar fridges had been emptied of our normal stock and re-filled with our concert stock. I ended up pouring soft drinks, cold beers, many, many glasses of wine and to mix some drinks. We started around 1:30 and almost just like that the sun had gone down and Simply Red was on stage. We closed the alcohol service and I moved to my speciality, polishing glasses.

Serving drinks was a lot of fun and we worked really well together with Lou. I did most of the walking stuff while she had to do all of the coffees and handle the money orders (ie. the spirits since all wines, beers and soft drinks were included in the ticket prices). Sometimes I was alone at the bar and did quite well even getting a $20 tip from a very nice young lawyer. There were, of course, some mistakes but things were so well prepared and the selection of drinks was so narrow that I was able to handle most of it. I had fun.

The night lasted until midnight before we got to leave, which everybody was actually surprised by. I talked to Helmut as we were fetching all the rubbish bins and he seemed satisfied with how things had gone and how hard people had worked. He also said that me, Sascha and Ana were invited to his house after work next Sunday.

Sunday morning I got to sleep a little later and even had time to take a shower. Again I was working at the bar, this time with Bree or Brianna. Before the tour busses arrived we were doing really well, but then we started running out of clean glasses and getting buried in coffee orders. I handled most of the alcohol and soft drink orders (I'm glad that I got that RSA) but the extended selection had me searching for wines at times when I could've been washing the glasses and helping Bree out. In the end we survived but the last hour and more was a joint effort of polishing glasses. While polishing, I talked to couple of the waitresses, Sasha and Taylor, and both were really nice and asked a lot of questions, a deed I still need to learn to return. But the conversations were still nice and went into surprising directions as good conversations always do.

When we finally got rid of the last group after five and after Tim, Taylor and I cleaned the bar I still had to wait for Sascha. I surfed the Internet until my battery died, made some coffees and just sat there. I couldn't wait to get home for my days off and to finish watching the second season of The Wire that I had been watching an episode a day on average. We stopped by the store and ate delicious pasta bolognese at around midnight. Sascha is a great cook and we also arrived on a solution on how to spit the food expenses. I finished the magnificent DVD set and got some valuable shut eye.

Today I have washed my linen, read some of my Hitchiker's book and just sat in the 21 degree afternoon sun. I burned my arms a little but I applied Aloe Vera while watching Ridley Scott's Robin Hood on Sascha's portable DVD player. In between I also had a really good chat with Sascha with him doing most of the talking about my life. A very nice day. Tomorrow we're going to the city and I want to buy some new magazines (in case my battery fails me at work again), season three of The Wire, new pants and maybe some shirts and socks so I don't have to do laundry too often.

After tomorrow it's back to work on the vineyard and I can't wait till the next 'Days on The Green' two weeks from now. John Farnham even has a very good song on my iPhone (You're The Voice, check it out) so the music can't be too bad.

Until next time, no worries.