Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday, Helen was discussing what food was needed for the coming days with the owner who was going into town that
day, when Lisa´s personal shopping list was spotted on the desk. The owner couldn´t read it so Helen had to read it
out to her. It was quite a shopping list:-
- MP3 player
- bigloudassheadphones (written exactly that way)
- gospel CDs (at which point the owner exclaimed "I´m not going to buy any of that sh**"
- hair dye - green and purple (owner now looking at Helen with mouth gaping open, not saying anything)
- pizza (owner now going up the wall)
- bug nets (owner grabbed list out of Helens hands and said "Right! Well! We´ll see about this!")
Helen and Kirsten just killed themselves laughing about the list which, would have been typical Lisa. But it turns
out that one of the guides had seen the list on the table, whilst he was using the phone and had completely rewritten
it, including only two original items that Lisa actually wanted - the MP3 player and some headphones! But the trick
worked because no one believed Lisa when she tried to deny it. The owner went mad at her but, eventually, the truth
came out. Not that the guide thought of apologising though, because over the weeks we have found out that all the
guides tell lies about the kitchen staff. For example, that it was chaotic in the kitchen because we were incompetent
rather than the fact that we hadn´t been shown what to do yet; the guides were telling the guests that we hated going
out to shore lunch long before we had a boat lesson so that we were able to drive out there. So the guests were quite
surprised to see that we were really happy out at shore lunch. They actually missed us when we weren´t there because
we served them and collected their plates and looked after them rather than them having to look after themselves when
the guides did the shore lunch. It seems the guides just wanted to give the guests a bad impression of us and stop us
from getting good tips. But it didn´t work because we talked to the guests and really got on well with them!
Our guests for the week included four couples. It´s not very often that we have ladies at the lodge as 97% of the
guests are men. So it makes a nice change when there is some female company. On Wednesday, the guests got there first
shore lunch outside as the weather had been so bad and we had a great time out there with them. Kirsten had to take
lots of photos for them. The next day we were told that the guides would be taking shore lunch out - probably jealous
because we get on so well with the guests! "Our ladies" told us that evening that they had really missed us at shore
lunch. In fact, they had seen a pile of bear poo on the path up to the shore lunch spot and thought that we had been
eaten by the bear! We said "So you saw the bear poo and thought it was us! Well, gee thanks!!"
It was a pity that our ladies had to leave and one of them even cried when she said goodbye to us. They gave us
little bugs (used for catching fish) with a note attached to them saying thank you. We also got a card from one of
the other ladies. It was really nice to get so much support and appreciation. It wasn´t just the ladies or couples
that showed us their appreciation though because the men did too. That evening Kirsten and Helen were given a "Master
Angler" T-shirt each by two of the (male) guests who were leaving the next day. Normally, you only get these T-shirts
if you catch a Walleye over 25 inches or a Northern Pike over 36 inches. So we were really proud to get them and
proudly showed them off as we served breakfast in them the next morning!
On Sunday Helen had a few problems in the kitchen. First, she put the beans in a pan to heat up for lunch as shore
lunch was inside today. Then she decided to go into the fridge to get some eggs to whisk up so that the fish could be
dipped into them and battered. She dropped two eggs on the floor in the fridge and was so busy trying to clean up the
mess that she forgot the beans which got burned on the bottom of the pan! She was probably nervous because England
were about to play France in Euro 2004! Maybe she knew they were going to lose!!
