My Cheesemaking Travels, Isle of Mull 2014 1/3
It seems we don’t get to decide what we’re going to get from an opportunity. I am sure that is all well and good but being a bit controlling I prefer the idea of having more of a grip on things.
Someone once gave me a good bit of advice. He said ‘you don’t get to control anything so there’s no point trying’. I know that he’s constantly setting things up and trying to get them to play out the way he wants so I never truly bought into what he was saying even though I could tell he meant it. Maybe there’s room for both though. A long term strategic plan that doesn’t get in the way of going with however the dice falls.
Last week started badly. I was asked to come in at 9am and was finished by 2pm. It felt ridiculous. Like I’d come all this way and taken 80% of my annual leave for no pay and to at best break-even to work a five hour day. How on earth was I going to learn anything? My offer is they get my labour for free and all they need to do in return is give me some actual work in the creamery or milking parlour. Not cleaning holiday cottages mind, that is out.
As the week went on I could feel how resentful and worried I was getting. Too close to the dangerous ‘Emma on her high horse’ point which always feels satisfyingly self righteous but usually means I say and do things I can’t take back. I started thinking that I could just leave or go work in the local abattoir. Anything to get out of a frustrating situation that might mean I had somehow stupidly ended up wasting my whole summer.
It’s interesting the way things can suddenly feel like a crisis when maybe all you need to do is give them a bit of space, stop expecting them to fit into your idea of what they should be, allow it to be what it is and move yourself around so you can still get something from it.
By Thursday things had thankfully improved as Pete, their cheesemaker kindly allowed me to come in at 6am which is at least close to when the day starts on a dairy farm. Mark, the temporary cowman has said I can come in for morning milking when he’s around as well but I can’t then go into the creamery afterwards so this seems to be the best way round to do it. I will help out in the creamery in the mornings and milk cows in the afternoon. That is the plan for next week anyhow which feels much more positive than five hour days that go nowhere.
So, maybe things aren’t going to be quite like I wanted but I’m still getting to try out a new life somewhere for a month which is giving me a whole lot of head space that I think I really needed.
High point this week: I got to climb into a cheese vat! So exciting. I’ve never actually got inside one before. This is the vat they use for making their main cheese and it’s huge – holds 5000 litres. I’d say at least ten Jacuzzi’s worth if you aren’t up on converting litres into a visual image, I’m certainly not. Turns out to clean it properly you need to climb in. Wahey for me. When filled you honestly could do a few strokes and have the most amazing bath. Very unhygienic of course and strictly off limits but tempting.
Low point this week: Is confidential and relates to how you make wax truckles. I can’t elaborate here but needless to say the process is not something a purist cheesemaker loves but if I’d thought about it I would have understood that it’s how all wax coated cheeses are made. All I’m going to say here, as a cheesemaker and ex cheesemonger, is when you want to buy good cheese buy either a small whole cheese or part of a larger whole cheese and enjoy the integrity of what that is. Leave those wax truckles to the Christmas Hampers where they belong.
* Names have been changed.
