For three months in 1995

I worked in “housekeeping” at the French Horn Hotel in Berkshire, Reading, UK. - Beautiful little hotel, beautiful setting & surrounds.

http://www.thefrenchhorn.co.uk/

Each morning we went to kitchen at 6am and made the room-service breakfasts that were ordered – freakishly heavy silver trays, teapots & cutlery we had to deliver FULL of breakfast & juice etc – scary! (Once I knocked the juice glass to spill all over tray and breakfast plate as I knocked on the door of the person’s room…. Sigh! Luckily I laughed instead of cried – haha)

All stoves/grills/ovens were gas so it was scary at first - gas-grilling sausages & tomatoes etc. and we had the timing of everything sorted J Soft eggs, hard eggs, etc.

Once all breakfasts served to rooms and people started checking out or going out for the day, we went room to room dusting, cleaning bathrooms (yuk) and making/changing beds & sheets (also sometimes yuk!) – till 3pm.  If it was our day off the next day we were allowed to take eggs, sausages, bacon etc. so we could cook up a lekker breakfast for ourselves the next morning in our rooms.

Our rooms were almost like mini bachelor flats with one main room that had a single bed and a small round table with two chairs in – Then in one side wall there was a mini stove and fridge with a sink and little place for a dish-rack & hooks to hand dishcloth etc.  Then bathroom with bath, loo & basin attached – so we were kinda self-sufficient and it was free to stay there so no bills! J

Sometimes, in the evening, we had to take turns to knock-knock on doors to ask if people want their “bed turned down” – then we had to open top corner of bed, place choccies on pillow etc. and sometimes serve them tea & biscuits in the lounges downstairs in the foyer thingy.  (I didn’t like doing that part!!)

And that’s the end of that story! J And that's how my "year's open ticket" to the UK was spent.  I then returned home and got married in July 1996. x