I think God is interfering with wordpress. I changed the title of this post to Keep Friday Special and it still insists on the link saying Keep Sunday Special. Anyway, here it is:
Some days you get to Friday and the week seems so squashed that you have to double-check the calendar. Where did Wednesday go? Surely we skipped Tuesday this week? And I know Thursday didn’t happen… It’s a good thing on the whole because it means you’re engaged and busy, but also scary because when time speeds up it means that you’re getting older and that merry-go-round of life just gets faster and faster until it shoots you off the end. T-t-t-that’s all folks! So long and thanks for all the fish.
Not so today. Today I am just thankful to have made it to the end of the week without major casualties of one kind or another. Monday was quite peaceful but with two hospital admissions on Tuesday and various phone calls and messages and visits flying back and forth I’ve hardly known where I am the rest of the time. Work has been largely washed out for the last couple of days and my brain doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going. It’s also not conducive to sleep to keep one’s mobile on all night, but I need to do this in case of messages from the hospital, so whether for that reason or another, I did not sleep well last night. But Friday it is, and what have I got lined up for the weekend? Erm… a bit of light strimming and Quaker meeting via Zoom. That’s about it. Much as I’ve enjoyed lockdown I’m getting to the point where I’m feeling it would be good to have some sort of social calendar again; to go to the pub or the cinema, to meet up with friends. I could go to the pub – it’s just that I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea. So there we are.
Friday is for most people a special day; a day of winding down and looking forward to the weekend, so we should keep Friday special. There used to be a campaign, back in the days when shops were beginning to open on Sundays, to Keep Sunday Special. I’m all for the principle of people having rest but for me growing up Sunday was not special at all; it was one giant yawnfest. The afternoons were interminable, especially in winter. In the summer you could have a trip out to Richmond or Osterley Park, get a rowing boat on the river or ramble in Windsor Great Park, but in the winter there was nothing to do but play cards or look moodily out of the window at the rain. It was enforced rest with nothing enjoyable open; no shops, no pubs, nothing. (I remember at trip from Chester one Sunday where going over the border into Wales I screeched ‘Turn back! It’s dry!’ In Wales on a Sunday the pubs remained firmly, Presbyterianly closed all day, whereas in England they were at least allowed to open for for a few brief hours.) I’m definitely not in favour of 24/7 consumerism but neither do I want a return to those dull days.
Anyway, happy Friday and I hope you enjoy the weekend.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 