This week has been quite interesting and also quite hard, more emotionally than physically. There seems to be a certain amount of farm/internship politics related to managing to do what you want and working in particular areas. I have learnt that working in the cafe is something that is often given to new people often with the hope that they will take it on almost in a management capacity so that the owners can have someone that does that for free. Because i have experience working in cafes and restaurants i guess i seemed like a good fit for that but that isnt what i came here to do so a lot of this week has involved battling with the people in charge of the rota so that i can get a chance to do a variety of things while im here rather than just working in the kitchen and cafe.
Monday was a good day as i was in the store, i had been wanting to find out more about the clientele and the produce. From what i could gather they were pretty much as i had expected and fall somewhere under the yummy mummy category. Though there were also a few older locals that seemed to be regulars as they got their papers from the store. I was quite surprised to learn that most of the vegetable produce is not actually from the farm but from other ones in the area, apparently we sold everything we grew and then there are other things that we don't grow so have to buy in. To me that seemed to defeat the point of the sustainable farm especially as we were selling lemons and oranges that weren't even from the country. The meant however all comes from the farm and there is a lot of it and it looks great. There was a funny moment for me in the strore when i overheard an interaction between the butchers assistant and a customer, the butchers assistant is a very straight talking young woman from Hungary, she was trying to help a customer buying lamb, the customer was remarking on how small the cut was and the butchers assistant said very matter of factly "yes thats because it came from a very little lamb" this seemed to upset the customer a little and put her off a bit, which the butchers assistant didn't get at all. I thought it was brilliant because the woman was buying meat from the place where the animal was born and raised, i don't think she had really thought about how close she was to where it all happened, the butcher ofcourse knowing very well.
Today was also a good day as its the day i bake for the store, we made similar things to last week plus some pastry cases, i discovered im actually wuite good at making pastry which i didn't think i would be because of my ridiculously hot hands. I also got to see inside the butchery and abbatoir which was fascinating for me, i have never seen in my life such an enormous amount of meat, it seems like a very intense and aggressive environment, with people hacking away at so many dead animals. There were pigs and cows hanging in the chiller which were pretty impressive looking. The only animal that is slaughtered at the farm is the chickens and everything else is taken away. I want to know a bit more about the butchery but I find it a bit intimidating at the moment and the two guys that work in there don't speak English very well.
On the night before me day off i went to london and had a lovely evening and next day there and got to catch up with some people. It hadn't been so long since id been in civilisation so it wasn't so weird.
Ok thats all for now. X
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