A Holiday in Lauterbrunnen?

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Pork Shoulder

Napoleon Dyanmite

Power Ballads

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Well, I wouldn't exactly describe it as a holiday... see more - written a couple of weeks later, using memories and photos!

Thursday 29th March

Arrived back at the Manor about 7 - bit later than planned - but they’d held me some food! Had a few chats, then it was the monthly meeting, explaining what has been going on with Oak Hall that month. We sat at the back as we expected to have to leave half-way through, but were then told the coach had been held up in London. Then it was all on again, so we loaded the luggage (lots, as had all my ski gear for one day’s skiing I get, plus clothes for cleaning in, and some thought-provoking (and more trashy - I’m not proud!) books for any down-time… plus of course I was going to go running every day, so all my running gear!! Went down to Vestry Road to meet the coach, which was already on its way from London. Said goodbye to Sam, who would be gone from the Manor when we got back - as she was off to South Korea and New Zealand. Then it was settling into the coach ready for the journey which would see us arrive in Lauterbrunnen about 4.30pm (French time, so minus one hour) the next day! It’s “pretty much not my favourite mode of travel”, but it’s not as bad as some people make out.

Friday 30th

We made it into France soon after midnight - with Jonny (doing plenty of Napoleon Dynamite impressions!) and Freddy driving us to Strasbourg, where they went for a kip, and Brendan drove us the rest of the way. We had a “lovely” breakfast on the way out - was too early for anything much other than pain au chocolat (oh, what a shame!), and lunch was at a pretty nice service station - if you ignore the ‘exotic adult shop’! We arrived about 4.30/5, where the previous group was all ready to load up - but they had to wait for us to unload first - including lots of food - might even have included a bit of ‘pork shoulder’ (Spam to many of us!)! Managed to snatch a shower before I was in the kitchen washing up the first of many meals - one of the super-industrial washing up machines of course - aside from pan-scrubbing!

First evening is a bit of a blur of meeting loads more people, first-night notices, first team-meeting, waiting up for the plane-load of passengers who were caught up somewhere so we could serve their dinner, etc.

Saturday 31st

Jen asked me to be in the kitchen by 7.45, so I went to the 7.15am prayer session first (bearing in mind that clocks had changed the week before, and gone back as we crossed borders, so last Saturday this would have been 5.15am!). Back into the kitchen for more washing up, about 9am Jen, Leanne and I sat down for breakfast, and decided we’d use some of the time for bit of Bible sharing/praying about the challenges facing us each day. This set us up for the day, and then they went into the kitchen to prepare for the evening meal (being a skiing holiday, our guests have all made sandwiches - pork shoulder, corned beef, sandwich spread, Marmite, cheese, and CHOCOLATE SPREAD surely being the most popular options in that order - and headed up the mountain for the day!), and I went off to work out what I needed to do. I’d been given a list of tasks by Lizzie when I left the Manor, and there seemed to be a lot on it. I can now tell you that every day I cleaned 18 toilets, 9 urinals, 20 showers (or was it only 16!), plus associated sinks, doors, floors! The dining room also needed to be made presentable, and after today, we ensured that our helping group for that day didn’t head off to the slopes until the tables were wiped with chairs on top, and all the sandwich stuff put away - this took me about an hour to do on my own, but obviously a lot less with a group doing it. One of the things I like about Oakhall is that every guest is asked to help set up/clear up at breakfast and the evening meal on one day of several of their holidays. People often don’t get this at first, but it’s a great chance to get to know people better - especially for those of us who are working, rather than skiing - and most people seem to enjoy it - especially once they realise that the kitchen is where the party is at!

The plan is that I should be finished between 12 or 2, as I’m back in the kitchen at 5, but I didn’t down tools til 3pm, as I’d had to get my head round where everything was, the appropriate level of cleaning, and dash down to the washing-machine room every hour or so to swap loads (the chalet takes about 130, so that’s a lot of sheets to turn round!). I went and had a shower, a chat to Leanne, then, believe it or not, I went for a run - told myself I only had to go for 10 mins each way, and ended up running for 50+ minutes - not quite sure how long as my heart-rate monitor stopped working on the home straight! It’s quite nice running in mountain air you know! Back in the kitchen for 5 - we forgot to keep food back - but managed to get some - dished up for ourselves and headed off to the team-meeting as the room was set up for the evening session. Good team-meeting, good evening session led by Simon (I have notes -somewhere - for what it was on, but I found the whole week pretty relevant), and I remember staying up chatting, and then crashing into bed!

Sunday 1st April

Another early morning - Jen has now asked that I be in the kitchen 7.15 so there I am - I won’t say bright eyed and bushy tailed, ‘cos that’s not how I am in the mornings. Hood up and mono-syllabic responses are what you get, ‘cos I’m a night owl… I can write until 5am if I’m in the mood! More washing up, and we had some helpers who weren’t dashing off to the slopes, but were going to church in Wengen, so helped us for longer, which meant we had brekkie and got to our tasks earlier! Around 12, we headed for the train station as we’d decided to go for hot chocolate in Wengen. (if you’re thinking of doing the same it worked out just over £5 for a return from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, if you don’t already have a ski pass). Tim had decided he was pacing himself on the skiing front, so he came with us too. Had a little wander up and down - to note that the Swiss tend to close 12-2, although most are open Sundays, but the ‘Bakerai’ was still open - and Tim was singing the praises of its quiche, so we tried some (well, I got a bunny shaped sweet-roll - I’m so grown up!) - and it was good! We’d run into Greg by this point, whose knee injury meant little slope time. We went to nice restaurant above the Co-op (sorry, can’t remember its name), managed to confuse the waitress by initially asking for 3 hot chocs, then 2, then 1 as 2 of us decided to go for Apple Strudel instead - nice - plenty of photo opportunities here, and to try out some Napoleon Dynamite impressions!!! Back to the shops - I think I bought a postcard (woo-hoo, exciting), and back down on the train (more photo opportunities here!), back through Lauters - me lagging behind with the camera (oh yes, it’s another mountain!). Got back in time for me to chill a bit, then went over to the Camping Jungfrau reception to report a few problems - they’re very friendly, and they were sorting the problems within an hour. I then went outside to fold some sheets (and catch some sun) - which gave me plenty of opportunity to view the busy helicopters and paragliders (I SO want to do this one day!) then it was back in the kitchen for more washing up, grab a plate of food (probably with Pork Shoulder in it), and off to the team meeting (including volunteering for tasks all week, I - slightly nervously - signed up to give my testimony Thursday)! After Simon, the evening was a load of games on-site, including ‘making a face of a team member out of kitchen ingredients’, ‘team secrets’ (aka guess which team member did x from a list of 10), finding 1 of something and being the first group to get all (someone suggested getting a black run marker - fortunately this wasn’t taken up on!), and ‘bum-spelling’ (spelling out words by rotating your backside!) - pretty fun but was ready for BED!

Monday 2nd

Monday was another busy day, and I finally got the hoover out. I’d been looking at it like it was some kind of crazy beast. I spent quite a while looking for where the on-button was, until Greg (who would have had to do caretaking on top of snowboard instructing if I hadn’t made it out), who’s off the slopes with his injury, walks past and points out there isn’t one - you just need to plug it in. He then recommends using a pillow for comfort, and takes a photo once I’m tooled up as ‘Bex-busters’! Jen and Leanne managed to finish early enough for Jen to nip up the slopes on her board, and once I was finished, Leanne and I headed into Lauterbrunnen for a look round with our (very) limited funds - we had about £10 each for the week! We ran into Jen, so they headed back to kitchen duties, and I carried out to check out the co-op (mmm, Swiss chocolate), with a bit of a look at hiking boots on the way back, plus the watch shop were very helpful and said if I took in my heart rate monitor they’d look at it overnight - grand - ran back for that! Party atmosphere was truly going in the kitchen once back for more washing up, grabbing food (wonder what it was, pork shoulder perchance), off to team meeting, another great evening talk from Simon before a few chats and another crash into bed.

Tuesday 3rd

Another busy day of cleaning, and a bit extra in the kitchen, as it was Leanne’s day off (she’d only done 1 days skiing before, and fortunately Brendan was in resort, so she had personal tuition for the day - apparently it was a blast!). Sat down in the afternoon to try and work out what I wanted to say for my testimony - the first bit was factual/fairly straightforward, but trying to think what I’ve been learning about recently - well, that’s a lot, so it was picking out 2-3 things, rather than trying to get it all into 5 minutes. Still found time to go back into Lauterbrunnen to check out some of the interesting gravestones, and to collect my heart-rate monitor, but it didn’t appear to be ready, so I tried on more hiking boots til it was time to get back for more washing up, another meal/team meeting, another good session from Simon, and turned round to leave after the evening session and saw Rob Dent sitting there… he’d come over for the evening as he was staying in the next valley but had planned to come with Oak Hall. Rachel sorted me out with skis/poles for tomorrow, before I checked out the fondue (both cheese and chocolate - only tried 1 of each!), and trying to get an early-ish night! Chucking it down with rain by this point - not sure that that’s a good sign, but hopefully higher up that means snow!

Wednesday 4th

My day off, very excited, especially . Up early enough for breakfast/to make sandwiches - no washing up for me today! Into the old ski gear (feeling a bit tight, what’s going on - hmm, let’s note all the references to food above, especially bread/chocolate/cheese!), and on with the ski boots (oh, so comfortable, it’s like wearing slippers - not!)… this time with my little heaters installed after my last ski holiday. Note, need to use REAL batteries with these - I had normal batteries in one set, and rechargeables in the other, and there was a noticeable difference in temperature. In fact, at one point one of my feet was burning up… Onto the bus, and, yahey, we’re on our way to the mountains (note, should we start a database of hymns with the word mountain in them for use in future Oak Hall holidays!?). Up in various cable cars to the only slope that’s open (so much snow has fallen, they have to clear the avalanche risks first), and I think my ski legs haven’t quite deserted me from 3 months ago - still remembering most of what was in my lesson - lots of carving. My only problem was that I’ve never skied in fresh snow (apart from maybe in my first week, when I couldn’t really ski, so…), so the powder kept collecting on my skis and I kept face planting it into the snow. Had a great morning skiing with Chris, Joanna, Fiona and Simon… even down a crazy (but short) black - before stopping for hot chocolate (I think I’ve gone past the let’s ski madly for every hour of the day, and am a fan of chair lifts/hot choc breaks!). Heading back to lunch, heading into a short bit of off-piste and fell over - took ages to free my skis from the snow, skied about 2 metres and promptly fell-over again - which I couldn’t get out of. Was a nice fresh area of snow, but was very thrashed about by the time I kept trying to stand up - but couldn’t get purchase, tried to roll into a different position, tried to take my skis off - you name it, I tried it… after about 10 minutes the others came back to find out where I’d gone and freed me, so we just about made it back for lunch - where caught up with Rob and his crazy hat again!

I joined Sarah’s lesson for the afternoon… very useful technique of backwards cycling to deal with the amount of snow… so most of the lesson was about how to deal with fresh powder snow and off-pisteing. By lunchtime, other slopes were open, so the lesson was essentially 2 runs of the James Bond run from the revolving restaurant at the Schilthorn. I’d done the run back in 2001 with Adrian and Paul - but that time had been head first, on my back, legs in the air, and really was very in-elegant. This time was much better - even did the second run without falling over (or does that just mean I wasn’t trying hard enough!). As the lesson ended, ran into Chris, Joanna and Andy, so we went back up to the restaurant for a hot chocolate, quick bit of scenery viewing, then heading back down the mountain. One of the cable cars had a crazy queue, but Chris managed to get on it - leaving us to watch as he glided out of sight!

Missed seeing Napoleon Dynamite, again - I want to watch it when Jen’s watching it as apparently watching Jen or Sam - or even better - both - is hilarious! Anyway, we got back in time for evening meal, then a quick ‘get-ready’ to go back up to Wengen, as the evening meeting was to be held at St Bernard's English Church, which I believe has a series of visiting vicars, who get in a bit of skiing on the side! An enjoyable evening, with Simon’s session on the wheat and the chaff - and with Tara’s testimony shocking everyone with some clothes removal… not that much though! An impromptu singing session started - some beautiful singers! Others headed to the pub, and I chose to join the group walking back down to Wengen by torchlight - that was fun, and went into the hotel in Lauterbrunnen for a hot chocolate afterwards (thanks, Tara), and a bit of a chat with some people!

Thursday 5th

Back in the kitchen for more washing up, etc. Jen’s day off, but she joined us for our late breakfast, before heading out on the slopes with Ali. There was also several other guests joining us - some because of injuries (which seemed to be crazy that week - especially knee injuries), and others, more excitingly, who were heading off for paragliding in Interlaken (very jealous!). Long breakfast, then, but once they’d gone, Leanne and I went back to our tasks. In the afternoon Leanne and I went into Lauters, where she bought a very lovely green bag, and I tried on the hiking boots once more, and bought them - one piece of travelling equipment down!! Heart-rate monitor was ready (it’s a shame it wasn’t available for my skiing day - would have liked to see what heart-rate gets up to on the slopes!), and bought some food for the coach, bit of chocolate to take home. Evening washing up was punctuated by singing Happy Birthday to Rhys (always get your friends to let Oakhall know it’s your birthday, will always get cake!), before we went for final team meeting (to much hilarity). Then we were onto the evening meeting, and my time had come. Was feeling pretty nervous by this point, but I had stuff written down, and I’d had another look in the afternoon, and people had prayed about it, but once speaking it just seemed to flow naturally, about understanding the concept of ‘grace’ at a previous Oak Hall holiday - being a natural striver/over-achiever, here’s something I don’t have to work for, it’s given to me (see What’s so Amazing about Grace by Philip Yancey), before going on to talk about learning to ‘rest’, and trusting that God has a plan for my future, although I’m not going to just sit and waiting for the lightning bolt - will keep pushing doors and reading careers/skills books! An evening of chatting to people followed, before I tried to pack and sleep, ‘cos there won’t be much sleep tomorrow night!

Friday 6th

The last day, and it’s all hands to the deck after a quick breakfast. Tasks are divided - no one on the team is on the slopes today. Ali and I are doing toilets/showers, Greg is out with the ghostbusters hoover, Sarah is out buying food for brunch, Leanne, Jen and Simon are cleaning the kitchen, John and Rachel are doing ‘ski-fit’ (getting them ready for the next group), and Tara was left in charge of the dining room. Toilets took a while - whilst doing them Kirsty came up with some ‘thank you Toblerone’ from the guests (so thanks guys), and we thought it’d be funny to get a pic of me cleaning the toilets - as that’s pretty much what I’d been doing all week! By about 11 or 12, we’d all finished (except the recycling, and no one was sure what happens with that!), so it was time for team brunch - what an amazing idea - and what an amazing amount of food (including fruit!). That was a good time, and a good chance to chat over everything from the week! After we’d waved off the plane-crowds, Rudy came over from Camping Jungfrau and filled me on what happens with Swiss recycling - which took me the rest of the afternoon to sort out - we’d done part of the work, but there was plastic to take the tops off/flatten, find a home, the cardboard muncher to be put to work, the glass and tin into a big crate...

Early evening meal (team didn’t need any more food!) before Brendan arrived with the next coachload, who unloaded, then we loaded up - big group photo(s), then on the coach. I’d volunteered to be courier although I wasn’t sure what this meant, and we couldn’t find the courier’s file - I just knew it involved the microphone and paying the tolls. The microphone is ‘not for fun’, so only serious notices - note that - well…!! Other duties included checking that everyone was on the bus before we drove off from each stop, helping pay for fuel (obviously not in the monetary sense!), and yes, paying tolls throughout the night! Notice the lack of mention of more running - very disappointing - but was doing hard physical work all week, plus a days skiing so not too bad!

Saturday 7th

I drifted in and out of consciousness all night, nodding off for 20 minutes at a time, waking up every time we appeared to be slowing down for a toll, or for petrol, staying awake for a while to chat to Tom or the driver - we left Brendan at Strasbourg, picking up James and Scotty. At 2am, with James’ encouragement, Tara was wide-awake and ended up dishing out Magnums to team - that was a surreal experience, but nice! We went through passport control as the sun rose, and made it back to Otford in plenty of time.

Plan was to stay with Nicky & Toby this weekend, but that fell through. I was not really compus-mentus when I got back, so headed off to one of the rooms for a 2 hour power-nap, before driving home, at which point I fell asleep until dinner - woke up, had dinner, and went back to sleep for 10 hours!

So, when I actually have the capacity to think, I’m thinking I’d like to do a winter season with Oak Hall, and get my ski instructor qualifications, so that I could come back in the future and teach every year?! Also, leading seems to use the natural skills that I have, so we’ll see. Must talk to the home team! Even if this never comes off, this has given me a real insight into what it’s like to be a member of Oak Hall team - they’ve always been good on trips in the past, but I’d never appreciated quite how hard they work -
but we also have a lotta fun!

Meantime, keeping in touch with people on Facebook is fun! Can also try Oakhall Reunited

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Photos

Freddy
Yell it in your best Jen voice!

Jonny...
Ditto!

Are we nearly there yet?!
YES!

The previous group
getting ready for the overnighter on the coach!

First morning mists...
Yes, early rising!!

Later in the day...
Beautiful. You see, if you dash off to the slopes early every morning you don't get to see this!

Beautiful rockface...
seen from the Camping Jungfrau site

Leanne, Jen & Bex
Tim had already "taken" one photo, this one was "to check"... and as you can see, it's the classic "have you pressed that button" shot!

Me 'n' the church
in Lauterbrunnen

Jen 'n' Tim
Waiting at the train station...

Leanne & Jen
On the Jungfraubahn

Leanne & Jen
Tim, do that funny expression again - go on!

Cows!
Add to the Cow Collection? Maybe not!

Wengen - lovely
Ooo - look - Jen got in this photo too!