The days went quickly, and we were quite happy, but moaned and groaned about the washin-up that we had to do by hand, Then one night Emma was off, and her sister Janet came to work in her place. It wasn't too busy, and Janet came to talk to us whenever she had a chance, and I noticed that every time we got stuff to wash, and did this in the deep basin, her eyebrows lifted, and she would look quite puzzled. She watched us doing this for a long time, then she asked whether the dishwasher had broken down. We looked at her with big eyes, suspicion mounting in our bosoms, and as one man said: 'Broken? It never worked!' We explained that nobody told us that the ancient old thing still worked, neither did anybody try to show us how it worked, so we assumed that it had given up washing fifty years ago! I wasn't as cross as Anna who did most of  the washing-up, as I did the puds, and had lost all her acrylic nails in the bargain! Janet then showed us, and indeed, this thing must have been installed about a hundred years ago, but it at least worked.
I told Anna, who was actually much more experienced than me in serving-up stuff, that she had better start doing the puds, because what if I got sick and can't work. Of course she straightaway, after first trying to get out of it, got it right, and from then on, we took turns to do it, and Anna loved it, as she got to get into the bar where she of course smiled her toothy smile at all the men!
Then Rosanne called me into the kitchen, and said that I would from the next evening onwards, be the kitchen porter, and will stay in the kitchen doing salads, warm up the small crusty breads, cut up pizza stuff, ext,. and keep their utensils clean! I was devastated, as I knew by now how hectic things got in that kitchen, and it was so cosy and calm back in the scullery. Anna was also shocked, as the weekends were crazy, and for her to do all that on her own was impossible, but Rosanne said that she would have help from Friday to Sunday!
It was bally nervewracking, and I ran around like hen looking for her chicks to find the stuff they sent me for, and as I did not know the freezers and fridges, I was scrambling around madly, my mouth dry, and my legs shaking! But after a few days I was doing ok, and actually started to relax, but then Rosanne announced that she would work less during the week days, as I was coping so well, and could help Alex with a lot of the things. All would have been well and rosy, if Alex was only a little more patient, me not quite sure where different stuff were kept. One night the kitchen was very busy, with only the two of us, and Alex sent me to fetch a bag of King Prawns from a small freezer in the office. After actually packing out everything because there was no bag of prawns that I could see, he bellowed at the top of his voice for the whole pub and diningroom to hear: 'You are slower than a f.....g snail!!' I was in tears, as I had really looked well, so Alex told me to look after the stuff on the stove, as he would find the f....g prawns! After a long while he came back into the kitchen with a big plastic container, and told me meekly that he had forgotten that he had put it in there! Oh, I could kill him!
After struggling with the busses coming to Strathyre for a while, we decided to buy a car. Emma, who felt very bad for not noticing that we didn't use the dishwasher, promised to ask a guy called Ray, who had a caravan in the caravan park , and come only week-ends, to come and see us, as he had a second hand car shop!
The photo of the man with the bees shows the possible origin of the Highland fling, and I thought it hilarious!