So today was my second day of being a butcher! And I don't want to brag or nuttin, but I still have ten fingers! A promising start.

 For the next month I will be working at M. Feller, Son and Daughter - which is a prestigious organic butchers located in the Covered Market in Oxford. I know that I am, essentially, a Christmas temp, but even so I feel quite honoured to be working there. If you live in Oxford, or have visited the Covered Market around Christmas, you will know Feller's as the butchers which is festooned with pheasant, rabbit, goose, boar and turkey carcasses. Like some grisly, profane Christmas tree decorated with the sole intention of upsetting vegetarians. No! The Christmas display at Feller's is fascinating and traditional and probably only upsetting for vegetarians who are already having a bad day. It's where all the most devoted, ethically-aware carnivores get their meat. It's a Big Deal, you guys. And now, their reputation is in my hands! Sort of, anyway. It's a lot of pressure. I'm honoured, but on the other hand, I am SHIT SCARED.

The hardest thing about being a butcher, so far, is the weights. People ask you for six kilograms of diced venison, 2 ounces of lambs liver and a pound of beef scrag like it aint no thang, and then stare at you with unblinking eyes as you frantically try to convert everything into metric because that's what the scales do and then you realise you don't even know what metric is and your only real idea of weight is that 8 stone is skinny and 11 stone is fat so you just grab a handful of meat - a big handful if the customer is a man, a smaller handful if the customer is a lady - and shove it on the scales and then everybody balks and your stomach drops because that's not SCRAG you IDIOT that's NECK. Except scrag and neck are the same thing so that's a bad example. I think they are the same thing, anyway. I just googled and scrag and neck are the same thing, but you can only get scrag from a sheep. Lawks amercy! As I said earlier, I still have ten fingers.

I've got a lot to learn before the Christmas rush begins properly, when we work 4am-11pm and the queue stretches the whole way out of the market. I really, really want to do a good job and learn a bit about being a proper butcher before I leave, because hey, this is a a RARE and fascinating opportunity.  I should really make the most of it. Also it is important to always Try Your Best. Before I started I vaguely pictured myself as some kind of butcher-Jesus, benevolently handing out sausages to adoring disciples who spoke of the miracles I perform in awed whispers. HA. HA, ME OF THE PAST! You dumb bitch! The more I learn about being a butcher, the more overwhelmingly complicated it seems to be.