So, today’s the day we start work – heehee – how exciting! I’m flipping knackered after getting up at 5.50am and getting sorted. We meet everyone in the kitchen and we get chatting to the other peeps that also work at the factory:
Wiebka – German girl from Bremen, Kamila – Polish but lives in Germany, Rachel – Canadian , Miriam and May – Norwegian girls travelling together. Yay, girls to talk to! We manage to have our pack lunches made and eat our brekkie, before heading out of the door at 7am where we get picked up by a wee minibus.
It’s a 10 minute drive down to Ettrick, to where the factory is: C.A.J Van der Voort. We go into this staff room type area and everyone starts making a brew – haha – there’s quite a few older peeps there and I start to think they must have been working here for decades….bless them! Nowt else to do in this place!
We get introduced to Helen, the packhouse supervisor and she hands us a groovy looking ‘smock’ overall thing and a………HAIRNET!! Even Aaron, who has no hair, has to wear one – hahahahaha. We’re all loving the novelty of it and away we go into the packhouse.
Man alive! What a sight!! It’s HUGE!! There’s a section where all the old gippers are….apparently, they are the Graders…..ok……then there’s about 20 conveyor belts where we each stand – Packers we’re called - and we sort through the hundreds of apples which are being spat out onto the conveyor belt or ‘line’ and then we tray them up and then pack them into cardboard boxes. Simple hey!? It’s amazing to see how it all works and to see how many thousands of apples must be packed and shipped off to the UK.
We split into pairs and take a conveyor belt and start to pack apples! It’s hardcore work but before we know it, it’s our first break at 9am where we get another cuppa and free biccies – awesome! Then it’s back to it. We make it to lunch with only a few dramas – apparently, apples can get stuck on the conveyor belt and it all kicks off! The trays keep coming out but no apples are coming down and that means the full trays at the bottom of the line keep getting shift further and further to the end….until….argh, they’re falling off and it’s all going Pete Tong! Total Apple Nightmare…..
Anyhoo, the day is over at 4.45pm. We made it! Wow, I’ve never ached like this before in my puff. We all stagger back onto the bus and have some apple banter back to the hostel. We head for a post work nap – it was that hard – and we hit the kitchen to cook our cheapy dinner. 9pm comes and we’re shattered so off to bed we go and that goes for all of us! How funny!
Wiebka – German girl from Bremen, Kamila – Polish but lives in Germany, Rachel – Canadian , Miriam and May – Norwegian girls travelling together. Yay, girls to talk to! We manage to have our pack lunches made and eat our brekkie, before heading out of the door at 7am where we get picked up by a wee minibus.
It’s a 10 minute drive down to Ettrick, to where the factory is: C.A.J Van der Voort. We go into this staff room type area and everyone starts making a brew – haha – there’s quite a few older peeps there and I start to think they must have been working here for decades….bless them! Nowt else to do in this place!
We get introduced to Helen, the packhouse supervisor and she hands us a groovy looking ‘smock’ overall thing and a………HAIRNET!! Even Aaron, who has no hair, has to wear one – hahahahaha. We’re all loving the novelty of it and away we go into the packhouse.
Man alive! What a sight!! It’s HUGE!! There’s a section where all the old gippers are….apparently, they are the Graders…..ok……then there’s about 20 conveyor belts where we each stand – Packers we’re called - and we sort through the hundreds of apples which are being spat out onto the conveyor belt or ‘line’ and then we tray them up and then pack them into cardboard boxes. Simple hey!? It’s amazing to see how it all works and to see how many thousands of apples must be packed and shipped off to the UK.
We split into pairs and take a conveyor belt and start to pack apples! It’s hardcore work but before we know it, it’s our first break at 9am where we get another cuppa and free biccies – awesome! Then it’s back to it. We make it to lunch with only a few dramas – apparently, apples can get stuck on the conveyor belt and it all kicks off! The trays keep coming out but no apples are coming down and that means the full trays at the bottom of the line keep getting shift further and further to the end….until….argh, they’re falling off and it’s all going Pete Tong! Total Apple Nightmare…..
Anyhoo, the day is over at 4.45pm. We made it! Wow, I’ve never ached like this before in my puff. We all stagger back onto the bus and have some apple banter back to the hostel. We head for a post work nap – it was that hard – and we hit the kitchen to cook our cheapy dinner. 9pm comes and we’re shattered so off to bed we go and that goes for all of us! How funny!
Hayley
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