The 19 year shop assistant lives between her parent’s and her boyfriend Steve’s houses. She lives in North Devon where she works at the pasty shop and surf school, Surfing Croyde Bay.
The alarms goes off at 7, and, as per routine, I throw my pillow at it, roll over and go back to sleep. At half 7, when I can’t stand Chris Moyles’ endless chatter anymore, I’m up. I stagger downstairs, make a coffee, and sit zombie like at the kitchen table. I look at the clock to realise I’m late, and there’s no better wakeup call than that! You’d think I would have learned by now to get up earlier, but it’s futile to even suggest it; I am not a morning person.
After running around like a lunatic, realising I have no clean clothes, and begrudgingly pulling a pasty-smelling t-shirt over my head, I’m ready to roll. I love the drive to work, the way you round the corner and it’s just the ocean in front of you, makes you feel so free.
When I get to work, it’s half 8 and, the lights are out. Ben was supposed to be here an hour ago but it’s no surprise that he’s not here. I’ve never known anyone to sleep so much! I go round the back, let myself in and turn the oven on.
Once the pasties are slowly cooking and the coffee machine is fired up, I start to make coffees for the surf instructors. They will be in soon and always moan if they don’t have a coffee waiting for them. As if on cue, two of them drag themselves in through the back door, followed by Nicky and Lauren, my co-workers, and we open the shop.
However calm it is in the morning, the day will always be busy. Today is a sunny day and we’re hit with a constant flow of people. My job is very physically demanding, and the three of us take turns to cook pasties in the sweltering heat of the kitchen, serve customers or run up and down the stairs restocking.
At about 11, Ali, the owner, wanders in, takes a handful of freshly cooked Rolo cookies and then disappear upstairs for a while. This is a regular occurrence, and he’ll be back as soon as it’s time to cover for lunch breaks.
When it reaches one o’clock, I run upstairs to the roof and sit in the sunshine for half an hour’s lunch break. I try to always time my lunch for one so I can lie in the sunshine on my own and relish in peace and quiet, but this normally gets interrupted by a surf instructor. Today Jonny comes up to join me and we talk about when I go to university in a few weeks time, before it’s time to get back to work.
The afternoon goes quickly as it always does, and the second the clock hits half 5, I grab my stuff and run. The shop is open until 10 in the summer, so it’s always so a guilty pleasure to say goodbye to everyone who’s staying on as I run out the door.
I drive round to the beach and sit and watch the waves for a bit. I love to do this; it just completely calms me after a hectic day. Sometimes I sit here for a bit longer and read, it’s my favourite pastime. After half an hour, my phone goes off and I wonder who is interrupting my moment of calm. But when I see Steve I am jolted back to reality; I supposed to be staying at his tonight and I am late! Jumping in the car, I quickly drive round to his.
As soon as I step in the door, he points to the shower. The only trouble with my work is that I tend to radiate the smell of pasties to everyone within a mile radius. So I take a short shower and then cuddle up to him on the sofa. I am exhausted after being on my feet all day so I eat dinner with him and his Mum, watch some TV, and then I fall asleep. At 11, Steve wakes me and it’s off to bed.
I feel bad I’m never awake enough to do anything with him in the evenings. It’s my day off tomorrow, my first in 15 days, so it will be good to do something with him tomorrow. As I feel Steve wrap his arms around me, and I drift off pretty quickly into a dreamless sleep. It’s been a long day.
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