More of Life at The Importner

We have to muck in and do pretty much everything at The Importner. Today I was called in to help in the kitchen - washing up. There’s a big lunch on and I was actually called down from my repose - bloomin’ cheek! It’s hateful work - there are huge greasy pans to wash in extremely hot water and not a rubber glove in sight! At the end of it my hands were bright red and seemed to be twice their size :-(( I came to dread being called into the kitchen.

But the bright spot of the week was when Eugen called to ask if I would be going to Walzenhausen on my day off - what a silly question lol! Couldn’t have Wednesday off this week as there’s another big lunch on - so more kitchen duties........Had lovely day with Eugen on Thursday tho’, he cooked me his special cheese souffle’omelette, made by whisking the egg whites til fluffy then gently folding in the yolks, cooking the bottom of the omelette in a pan then flashing it under the grill to brown the top - superb! Went for a walk in the afternoon, then met his sister Sylvie and her husband in the evening for dinner, we also met a group of English holiday makers so had a very jolly evening. We came back to The Importner in Sylvie & Hubby’s car, Eugen walked me to the side door of the hotel and, to my surprise, kissed me rather passionately! Hmm - very strange.........

A ‘new’ person has suddenly arrived at The Importner. A young lady is working in the bar and she seems to be very much at home here. It transpired that she used to work here about a year ago but has been off travelling. Her name is Olgi and she speaks enough English for us to converse, I like her, but Frau Geiger is a bit cagey around her. Over a period of time, the full story came out. It seems that when Frau Egglie died and Herr Egglie decided to retire, their son Hans-Uli took over the running of the hotel and Frau Geiger who had been ‘maid of all work’ like me, simply decided to take over and made herself ‘The Frau’. As Hans-Uli had to go away to do his National Service (if I remember rightly, young men up to the age of 40 had to do about 6 weeks National Service every two years) no one objected, in all fairness, she served her purpose, but Olgi was not too happy with this situation and went all out to prove to Hans-Uli what she could do. And so began an evening ritual where Olgi would take me down into the linen room to help her clear it out - she wore a very fetching ‘overall’ that barely covered her bum, and did rather a lot of bending over ;-) when Hans-Uli came down to find out what was going on. It was very hard work, all the equipment had to be moved to clean behind, and it was very heavy. We would be there until 11.0pm some evenings, I was paid extra, but it played hell with my social life!

It soon became obvious that Olgi & Hans-Uli were starting or re-newing a close friendship. We were often called to change the sheets in one of the bedrooms during the afternoon or early evening, when normally we would only be tidying up bathrooms and turning down the sheets. It was obvious someone had been having a jolly time and Maria would keep muttering ‘schiffo’ which apparently meant ‘disgusting’ as we made up the bed with fresh sheets. Frau Geiger was feeling distinctly unsettled and seemed to be trying to get me and Maria on ‘her side’. But there was no way she was going to win this particular battle - Olgi was a very attractive, hardworking and clever gal..........

Furthermore - she was planning on consolidating her position by moving into The Importner. One day she asked me to go over to her flat with her, as she was having a clear out. She gave me some nice things, jewellery, trinket boxes, scarves and a lovely pink lace suit. She would have loaded me down with all kinds of stuff, but I had to travel light, so unfortunately I had to say no to some of it.

We have a party of Americans in, the funny thing is that they assume I’m Swiss, and I was complemented on my English lol! The trouble is, the tour leader wants to make use of her knowledge of German and insists on speaking to me in what she thinks is my own language. I’m having difficulty enough learning German and spoken with a Southern Drawl doesn’t exactly help. We are kept very busy chasing round after them - I have never known anyone use up as many toilet rolls as those Americans - goodness knows what they were doing with it all!!!! The Tour Leader seems to be a little frustrated by not being able to make herself understood, and as it couldn’t possibly be her command of German, she thinks I must be Dutch! Of course I could have told her that I was an English girl who didn’t have a full comprehension of German, but by this time I was having too much fun ;-)

Mum & Dad are coming to Lucern for a holiday and I am going to meet them there and stay for a couple of days. I kept waiting for their phone call to let me know that they’d arrived, but it never came, I rang the hotel where they are supposed to be staying but they don’t know what time they’ll be arriving. I hung around all day then came the phone call in the evening asking me to go straight down there as they were on their way, but I got there before them, the Frau in charge wasn’t very helpful, but one of the waitresses looked after me until the package tour that Mum & Dad were on, finally arrived.

The Hotel Pilatus is beautifully situated on the edge of Lake Lucern - it has a truly glorious view of mountains and heavenly blue lakes. After supper we all went down stairs into the cellar which had been turned into a night club, we had a very lively time and finally staggered off to bed in the early hours of the morning. I joined the group on a trip to the Three Passes - wonderful views, glorious sunny day, even though there was plenty of snow on the mountains!

It was mum’s birthday on 4th July, and everyone on the tour was wishing her a happy birthday which pleased her no end. We went shopping and I bought mum a lovely blue enamelled fob watch. Later we went on the cable railway which was very scary - I’ve never had a head for heights and it wasn’t an experience that I look back on with joy, mind you, everyone else was looking a bit green around the gills as well......We had an early tea and the chef sent in a birthday cake for mum. Afterwards Roger, the Tour Guide, ran me to the station to catch my train back to St Gallen. It was an awful journey back, I had to change trains several times for one reason or another. I finally arrived in St Gallen at 12.30am, and was tucked up in bed by 12.50! But it was awfully hard getting out of bed at 6.30am........I was so tired all morning and so much work to do, the Americans are leaving today and what a mess they left behind them - the rooms looked as if they had all had difficulty finding their belongings - the down side of living life on a whistle-stop tour I expect........