“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can.”
– J.R.R Tolkien, The Walking Song
Dear Polecat,
A lot has happened since we last met. This is going to be a long blog post, so strap in, grab a cuppa and read away. I shan’t be at all hurt if you read it in stages, or divide it into chapters. Honestly I’m just happy to have some place to put my thoughts down.
Let’s tackle this chronologically; starting, of course, with your visit!
You came to see us last week, and what a wonderful time we had. Of course, our last blog post was a joint one written half-way through your visit, but once we’d penned that massive missive we dolled up and hit the few sparse pubs and clubs that don’t really deserve the name ‘the town’ and made merry. I know you tried Genepi and Chartreuse; are you converts to the herbal digestiv or will you be sticking to the vodka tonics? We also manfully (and womanfully) attempted a blowjob each. I’ll leave you to decide who did it better…
Then Les Arcs 1950 and 2000! Arc 2000 is charming, but Arc 1950 is possibly the most beautiful man-made place in the entire mountain. I’m still salivating a little bit over the quiche we had in the Wood Bear Cafe. Maybe I’ll get someone to bring me some when they come back from the mountain.
I guess that segues nicely onto my next bit of news. I (and Ash) have left the mountain, left Les Arcs and left the French Alps. In fact, we’re back in Manchester – closer to you than I’ve been in many months, with the obvious exception of your visit. We had scheduled to leave next weekend, have a quick and hectic day of preparation, then get stuck in with my new job in Glasgow. That was the plan, but for various reasons we felt like we had to push that forward.
As you know, I’ve had quite a few struggles with elements of the job of bar manager. One of those struggles was the difference in attitude between me and my General Manager. I’m very much a people person; my skill as a manager lies in making people happy and productive – whether its the staff beneath me or the customers in front of me. I can make people smile, make people glad to be where they are. And I’ve always found that skill to yield good results. However inexperienced I might be with the paperwork side of being a manager, I can manage and lead people very well.
My GM, on the other hand, has little to no skill in that department – and apparently even less desire to develop any. Many was the time that I had to smooth things over behind her; an encouraging word here, an extra compliment there, etc. In extreme cases, I would have to convince people to stick around, and remind them of the good parts of living up a mountain and being able to ski/snowboard daily. But it was a struggle for me – I dislike confrontation, and when I have to stand in front of my superior and battle for my staff to be treated fairly, I find it very draining.
That came to a head early this week – and now that I’m telling you it, I should probably mention something else that happened early this week too.
As you know, the EGSW was this week. The European Gay Ski Week is a yearly event that happens in Arc 2000, and this year they were trekking down to the swimming pool in 1800 for a pool party – and I was in charge of the bar there. I’ll skip lightly over the two early early morning starts (at least for me) that were necessary in order to cart kegs, boxes of wine, glasses, a beer pump, and numerous others bits and bobs halfway up a ski slope to the pool – they were irritating but necessary.
But the pool party itself was brilliant. We dolled ourselves up a little for it, I must admit – a tank top to show off my rippling (well, wobbling) muscles, a bikini and sarong for my female barmates, and more than a little flirting all round. I was the only male bartender and I have to say, I really enjoyed the attention. 😉 Makes me pine for my CC’s days – the simple pleasure of receiving a compliment compounded by the fact that it happens roughly twice as much. I miss that environment a lot – not enough to go back there, especially not with my new and exciting job waiting for me, but certainly enough to be wistful.
Anyway. I’ve digressed. The pool party happened on the Tuesday night, and on the Wednesday morning I got up early to bring everything back to the bar. That done, the plan was to meet the rest of the staff for a meeting (another bug bear with the GM, as despite my insistence that a meeting should happen at the staff’s own requests, she’d flat out refused – so I told them we would have an optional, non-paid, off-premises, out-of-hours meeting. A fair compromise, I think) and then back into Red Hot to have a talk with the GM about certain things. The office politics of the entire situation will, I’m sure, bore anyone who wasn’t directly involved, but there was a lot to discuss at this meeting. So I finished up moving everything, then was just about to leave when a chance comment by the GM necessitated a reply from me… which led to a sharp retort from her… which led to a heated statement from me.
And so on and so on.
Then I had had enough. I’m not all that ashamed to admit that I used my actor voice, projected like hell and added in a couple of choice words for emphasis. The upshot of the matter was that I handed back my key, told her I would return that afternoon for my money, and walked out to have a (now very different) meeting with the staff.
And thus the whirligig of time, etc.
The next few days seemed to pass with something that smelled a lot like inevitability. We changed our flights. The owner came out and had a meeting with us which ended in him partially agreeing and offering us a lift to the airport. We packed, tidied, said our goodbyes, and early this morning piled into a car and drove to Geneva.
And just like that, our snowy mountain season is over. 3-and-a-half months, not an insubstantial amount of time, but flown by like a particularly hurried seagull. We’d rebuilt our bar, seen it invaded by English students and French families, Dutch dickheads and belligerent Belgians, Americans with tiny dogs and Italians with tiny cigarettes. We’ve served and swept, waitered and KP’ed and cleaned and bartended our little hearts out. And now it’s time for the next adventure.
I think that’s all I want to say about that. No doubt it’ll spill out again some time soon but for now, I’m done with that topic.
We flew into Manchester airport and, one short train ride and a walk later, got to our hotel. It’s slap-bang in the middle of Manchester’s vibrant Gay Village, which is great – except our window is right next to one of the bass-thumping clubs and so I’ll go to sleep tonight with the sound of ‘Cheap Thrills’ boring into my skull. It’s midnight (or maybe 1am? the clocks going back/forward always confuse me. I’ll never forget the Halloween you saved my life with a Red Bull, an energy bar and a hug halfway through a difficult shift) and I’m not really tired. It’s been a long day but an eventful one, and I want to get all my thoughts out before I think about sleeping.
The plan for the next few days is simple, but not entirely restful. Tomorrow I’m showing Ash around one of my favourite childhood places in Manchester – the Museum of Science and Industry. All the things that fascinated and terrified me as a kid, I’ll show her around them all. Then we’re going to explore a little more, maybe find somewhere to have a meal, and try out a couple bars that Ash likes the sound of. Monday will be more exploring, errands like money-depositing, and then finding Afflecks – the giant indoor marketplace with several floors. I’ve been a couple times and it always seems very Aladdins-Cave to me. Then on Tuesday we’re going to hire a car, drive to the Trafford Centre and do a bit of gawping and shopping, then make the long drive up to my parents in Scotland. Wednesday – Friday will be spent in peaceful repose at their house (read: ‘sorting out all my stuff and visiting people’) before we head up to Glasgow just in time to start my new job on Monday! So yes – fun, but maybe not as restful as we should be taking it. Ah well, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
I’m switching between having the window open and having the thumping bass-heavy tunes wafting in alongside the cool refreshing breeze, or sweltering in relative silence. I’ll have to make a decision before bed, I suppose.
This is a pretty mammoth blog post, isn’t it? There’s a lot I haven’t mentioned – we saw Captain Marvel today (a solid 6/10) – there was an utter dickweed on our plane that was insulting the pretty air hostess, so I made her laugh – my lovely bar staff bought me a 1l bottle of Rumbullion that will sit next to your kind gift of Kraken; the two will make amazing candle holders once the rum is gone – we might (might) see you before we leave Manchester but I’m trying not to get my hopes too high – too much to mention.
For now, I’m going to finish my tea and maybe start penning a post on my own blog. Maybe that’ll happen, maybe I’ll suddenly get tired and save it for tomorrow.
It’s good to be back.
Mink x
PS. Once again I published this without explaining my title and quote. I don’t suppose they need much explanation, given the content of the blog, but there are a few things that make them a bit more apt. Firstly, I’m in the middle of showing Ash (for the first time, shock horror) the LotR films, so they’re forefront in my mind once more. Secondly, the quote always gives me a sense of adventure; no matter if the change you’re in the middle of is of your own making or not, it still has the propensity to make great things happen. Thirdly, and maybe most personally, one of my favourite quotations (😉) from LotR is at the end, when Sam comes home after all his adventures, settles in his chair, kisses Rosie and just says,
“Well…. I’m back.”
So this is my ‘well I’m back’ moment.
Letters to a Ferret 