Settling in Guelph

Before we moved to Guelph,  a few days before we went and bought a whole bunch of new furniture for our place. Finally the kids now who were becoming  teenagers had their own rooms, the house was big enough that it had 3 bathrooms which was pretty awesome, and plenty of closet space compared to the condo which the wife liked. It was a nice quiet street close to schools.

As soon as we got to Guelph it wasn't long before I started full time at the Guelph Keg which was 5 shifts a night. Unfortunately the Swiss Chalet in Guelph was a major disappointment here compared to the one in Orangeville. In Orangeville the staff was more my wife's age whom I will refer to as Soley her first name from now on as she will be mentioned quite a lot in future posts.

As September moved along our first big expense occurred right out of the blue. The Chevrolet Uplander we had which had only 160,000 kms on it had the transmission die. Now up to then we had very little problem with it but at that low mileage I was wondering what I did. Normal driving and regular oil and transmission checks is what I was making sure the vehicle received. Alas, when I asked  around I found out that the junkyards were full of Uplanders with the same problem. Not worth the expense now of fixing the transmission and having some money in the bank we decided to replace it with a new Kia Sedona. So far it has been great but really did not want the bi -weekly car payments to start right after we sold the condo. Never again will I buy a North American vehicle!

Like I mentioned the schools were already a lot better and I was getting on at the Keg and having fun with the young staff. I was the oldest one there by a country mile so as in the previous Kegs really enjoyed talking about what I was doing back when I was their age. This Keg had the challenge of wine selling contests. The wine manager of the restaurant, Richard, would contact  an Ontario winery who would send a sales rep to give a taste of a red and white wine that we would feature for a couple of months for us to sell. Whoever sold the most would get a free tasting and tour of the winery. I thought that was pretty cool with some even offering overnight accommodation for two. Even better.

I jumped in easily with both feet and together with being a sommelier and plenty of experience selling features all my life I jumped into a lead that doubled the sales of the others. It was not even fair really. Some nights I was selling $200 of the feature wine. The first one I started in I won by a large margin and the tour was going to be in January of all months. Kind of cold to be going to a winery in the middle of winter but hey it was a time to look forward to something to break it up.

The hours at the Keg were not long. If you started early you finished early and if you were the closer they made sure that closing hours were followed and that closing the dining room early was not an option. The most hours you worked were about 28 hours a week. The beauty of it was though it was only 12 minutes away as opposed to the 35 minute drive it took to get to the Brampton Keg from the condo in Orangeville.

It was nice and the money was better too. The quality of diner was better. Mostly by reservation with very few people after 9PM it was easy work. Back to being able to plan work around a school event as well. We did have the second car that I had bought to work at the other job in Mississauga a year or so earlier so Soley was able to use that to get to her work. Life was good.

I thought the move to Guelph with the less stress, travel, and easier hours were going to improve things for me health wise and to a certain extent it did. There was no more tray lifting over the shoulder and no stairs that at the end I couldn't manage anyway at the Terrace just because of my back. My back pain was gone with being back at the Keg and I could afford it some rest time during the day before I went into work that night.

A second wine contest had started around the start of November. With one under my belt this time around I was building up an insurmountable lead. The rest of the staff was sort of throwing in the towel so I urged them to carry on with some helpful hints on how to sell the feature wine or dinners. I recall there was a T-Bone steak we had as a feature dinner and there was a contest on who by 6PM could sell 6 T-Bone dinners by that time. Whoever did would get a free drink and appetizer that evening after service. Well fortunately I got a table of 8 and sold 6 on that table right at the beginning of my shift. I was having fun no doubt!

December rolled around and we were open for lunch two weeks before Christmas so made some extra money doing that. We were all set to have a nice Christmas.

We had a bit of time off during Christmas then I worked New Year's Eve and had the next day off. We all went to the Holiday Inn for brunch. I was developing quite a sore throat though and bit of a cough. It was really irritating so much so that I couldn't even swallow the Prime Rib without any pain. It was not enjoyable at all. I decided to go to emergency and have them check it out and maybe give me some antibiotic for it. I didn't feel great. Soley came along and off we went.

More tomorrow...

By the way the most readers I have so far are from Slovakia if you can believe it. If you haven't checked out my site yet go to www.stevennicolle.com or just click on it below.
For those of you who read and find these posts worthwhile and interesting check how you like it below as well in one of the boxes or better yet leave a comment and I will respond. Thank you.