Obergesteln, Switzerland

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This was my first summer trip with Oak Hall, and this time I'd volunteered to work as a cook. More excited about cooking that housekeeping to be honest, and then we got there, and there it was, not only cooking, but housekeeping too! That is one lot of work - thankfully we had some incredibly helpful guests who helped us out, not only in the kitchen, but with the cleaning, which truly is not (as was not) expected, but THANK YOU!

The trip (CH10) was to Obergesteln in Switzerland... a fair coach journey away, including an amazing journey over the Grimmelwald pass (which some found less than amazing, and I guess it is quite twisty!). Slight incident on the way down - you would have thought that the Mercedes could see the coach coming (we were already 3/4 of the way down), but no, it drove into the side of us. Only a small scrape, thankfully, but there we were. Even with that slight mis-hap, we arrived early, so had to wait for the previous people to clear out, and then it was all hands to the deck - unload the luggage, and unload the food. For Malou and I it was straight into the kitchens to unload and prepare the first night's meal, which we did on time! We had a great tour with our Swiss host, and thankfully had some interpretation... Various things to sort out including collecting the milk - which was so fresh that it took 3 visits to go and collect it before it was ready!

This was an amazing week, with a great bunch of people, great leading from Simon, great speaking from Gareth, Jonny & Andy were great (and patient!) drivers, and, according to some, Malou and I didn't cook too bad either... who came back for seconds! Malou and I had great fun getting to grips with the mixer to make the pizza dough - it felt a bit like holding onto a road drill! We had a great time in the kitchen generally - yes, it was hard work, but we had plenty of fun with the guests (and my laptop provided a great variety of music - unfortunately even some James Bond tune blaring out during grace on one evening - should have warned me!) - and we even got some time out in the sun, to look round the village and to wander in the nearby hillsides. For my full day off I got a trip into Fiesch, which, as you can see, had some pretty amazing views. I gave my hiking boots a PROPER wearing in (rather than city streets and country lanes) down the mountain on a highly enjoyable hike, taking in many paragliders (I so want to do that!), and - at lunchtime - an encounter with the local wildlife which was interesting - we felt the need to move on after tha point! To finish off the day we went to the Hotel Hubertus where we could have a swim and a jacuzzi session, and head back relaxed.

The week also involved a couple of ice creams at the local hotel that I've forgotten the name of, and Malou and I spent quite a bit of time walking the streets of Obergesteln (there's only 1 or 2!) collecting small items of food from the small supermarket, or from the Senerai (milking parlour) - the bread was delivered (and this was fun the last day when it wasn't delivered and I had to have a conversation on the phone with the bakery to get bread delivered 10 minutes later - with a smidgen of German/English on both sides - it happened!). Otherwise, for much of the week, a grassy bank out of the kitchen windows was what I saw, along with my bunk bed (and a great crowd of girls in my room - some interesting conversations too - you know what they were!), and the meeting room, which saw much interesting conversation!

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Photos

Industrial pizza base mixer...
Needs careful handling...