We survived San Lu!

Its true, after however many weeks and however many staff coming and going, its all over baby! Its been emotional! I've had a lot of fun and met some wicked people, the only question is, WHAT THE HELL AM I GONNA DO NEXT!?!? Answers on a postcard please. If I met you in San Lu, and you are reading, this then the chances are that I think you are a legend. If I know you from home, yes I am alive, sorry you havent heard from me in about 3 months! xxxx

Final final staff night out, I mean it this time

D-RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUNK
Roomies!
Roz and Nicola most definitely feeling the effects of the shot of death
Oscar pouring our shot of choice (the actual one we chose is a little fuzzy in my recollection)

It was generally a chance to drink all the booze and forget that we actually had to share the bar with the guests. I'll let the snaps do the talking!

Final staff night out!

Bond, Jon Bond
Chalet 2 laydeez (ie the cleaners)
Matt aerobics harassing young Rozzy
The 3 (girl) musketeers (not the original, Matt!) me, Nicola and Roz
Roz sporting the 'eating your shoulder' pose. Once again kids, dont try at home

The management decided to put on a big night out for us in none other than 'U Catagnu'...all of about 2 seconds from the hotel and most people go there all the time anyway. Regardless it was really fun and we got loads of food and cheap vino so we were happy! The highlight has to be when Jonny waterfront decided to test the efficiency of a spinny table by spinning it round when there were loads of drinks on it. Yes, they did all smash on the floor. Good work.

Shield your eyes

Its taken me all season to pluck up the courage to post this photo of my boss. Im sorry but I Had to do it. Just think Boy George, you're gonna have to wake up to this mug every morning in Lakitira. BURN!

ps yes that is his girlfriend
pps yes I dont know what she was thinking either

Tennis tennis tennis

Rookie Dave, Charlotte, and something blue and white that threw up on him
Steffi Gaff
So chavs play tennis too then...

The staff tennis tournament provided a chance to show your worth on the court and some truly dazzling attire that would have the wimbledon officials twitching in their tennis whites. To cut a long story short, James the runt feigned injury basically cos he couldnt be arsed to play, my partner Ben kept 'forgetting' we had a match and got drunk instead, Nicola and Greg (see chav above) had quite an impact on the tournament making it all the way to the final before falling to the might of Rookie Dave, Charlotte restaurant, and Rookie Dave's blue and white outfit monstrosity. I even managed to twist James' arm into getting us some Pimms for the final, which he did arrange...but 2 freakin jugs isnt enough for growing tennis players, LOSER!

Every night's a Tuesday night

Nicola and I have had some wicked tuesday nights working in the restaurant as Maitre d's... and they just got better and better. When my parents were out we must have drunk at least a bottle of vino each, and as Nicola finds it hard to have a conversation after a few bevvys without using highly unnecessary and over the top hand gestures, it caused a whole glass of the devils juice to go down my red armour. That was one thing. Our last night in the restaurant proved a grande one. There is a male guest here on his own who has been refused acceptance by pretty much every other guest..probably because they are put off by the strong body odour and side burns. No no, Nicola didnt get it on with him...she decided to invite him to come and eat with us. As she brought him over she 'claimed' she had something to do which meant I was on my own for at least 10 painful minutes while she stood behind him smiling, pointing and generally all the restaurant staff were laughing at the hideous social situation that I was in. After a while she felt sorry enough to come and save me and we had long chats about aircraft control and politics. No lie. We had had at least a bottle each this time so the convo was needless to say, flowing. After we made our excuses we smuggled more wine out of the restaurant and escaped through a giant fridge on to the safety of the hotel drive. It was at this point that we thought it might be 'funny' to take down all the wind breaks from the tennis courts in a highly STEALTH (you understand yet Roz?) operation under the cover of darkness. After we had taken down 3 we thought it was more like hard work and retreated to farthing wood, wind breaks under our arms, and the evidence was shoved in my room. I woke up to a mass of green and a severely confused James (not in my room...eww!).

CS Night Out

As they abused me for my robot-istic style moves for Run DMC at the battle of the bands, I have become an honorary member of the Customer Service crew. As the thought of an end of season tennis night out (ie all 2 of us) sounded as good as a train wreck, I went along with the lovely CS girls to a restaurant at the Port. It was cool being there with Roz, Nicola, Lauren and Jo, and we had quite a fun time trying out hardest not to laugh at the posing for photos by some of the other girls. Who would have thought the 'eating your shoulder and pouting' pose, fashioned so well by unnamed Welsh birds, would prove such a hit? Please note, don't try pose at home.

Squid Ink

Like the Jaeger bomb in America, I have brought home a drink from San Lu....SQUID INK! Its a general blue mess that stains your tongue and in my case my pearly whites (or not as the case may be) which I THINK includes vodka, triple sec, blue bols, lemonade and grenadine, as invented by the lovely Gaz bar, as he got imaginative with all the remaining booze from the season! At €3 you can't really go wrong..as Roz and I discovered over, and over, and over again.

The bad boy storm's aftermath

As you can see, our accomodation was flooded, the pool looked dirty (ok, dirtier than before), and the beach...was wrecked. Poor old waterfront were holding back the tears as their precious beach was soon covered in general crap including bits of wood, rocks and took absolutely yonks and a JCB to clear up. They were all right drama queens and said they should all just go home cos it was too much to clear up, the poor mites. They kept their chins up though and the highlight probably has to be PGL rescuing Jonno on a windsurf, only for them to need rescuing themselves as the rescue boat got flipped....it was proper Baywatch type stuff I tell thee.

Then the heavens opened...

When it rains in Corsica, it doesnt just drizzle a little bit, it CHUCKS it down. We're talking torrential big fat rain. So bang on cue, on my day off when I was going out in the car again with Marge and Pete, it had rained all the way through the night and didnt seem to show any signs of letting up. We went down to the South of the island hoping to get some nice weather only to realise that this was mean looking storm that was determined to wreck this island! We tried driving back up the main road to get back home to San Lu, which should take under 2 hours. About half way home we were confronted by a typically unhelpful gendarme who insisted the road was 'ferme' and there was no way of getting to where we wanted to go that day and directed us to the nearest hotel. Hell no! Being such a tennis martyr, and knowing that I simply couldnt let down all my proteges who had lessons the next day, Pete set himself the target of driving the WHOLE of the island on a different route to get home. It took about 6 hours to back and I can now say that Corsica isnt quite so attractive in the dark.

Trips out to Calvi

With Marge and Pete's visit, it meant that I could finally get out of San Poo and explore a bit more of the island. My god, Corsica is ACTUALLY quite nice. We went to Calvi in the North East of the island and then over a little bit more to the north to San Florent. Twas beautiful and made me realise that Corsica isnt a completely rubbish island deficient of McDonalds...but in fact quite nice!

Oh yeah, while I remember I now can kick arse on a windsurf...Im RYA 1 qualified baby! I did get stung by a big fat jelly fish in the process tho which was unwelcome. Oh and also I got a diving qualification! Woo! Nearly choked underwater as I tried breathing through my nose. Not a recommendation.

Parental units in da house

My parents have a pretty decent life, flitting from holiday to holiday in their retirement days, so of course it was time to give their beloved daughter a visit. They stayed in the hotel which they were pleasantly suprised at, considering I had brandished it a crap hole before they arrived.

It wasn't long however, until Margey was causing some Weaver style embarassment.

It all started with my ma interrupting a scuba diving lesson to ask whether they had any boots made of wet suit, and she then went into great detail about her sensory deficiency which took her 5 minutes to remember the name of, which also warranted pulling up a pew to get a bit more involved and fully and completely embarrass me. Thanks Nicola, who was present at said lesson for keeping a lid on the fact that she was my mother.

Its not what you know...

Giving out the staff lessons for 'free' was probably one of the greatest plans I'd had since I've been here. After giving a few different departments lessons, I realised that the true key to success was to target the chefs. Dan cooked me a gourmet meal one day to the jealousy of all the other 'general' staff in the taverna, but Potter hit back with this bad boy.....TRUFFLES! Complete with chocolate writing to express his gratitude, I was lovin it.