Fiesta? What Fiesta?

In Spanish an extra holiday is called a fiesta, meaning Feast Day. It used to be so over here but nowadays they are very prosaically called Bank Holidays. We tend to think of Mediaeval times as being filled with drudgery but they had many more holidays than we do. Mind you, those who can afford it take lots of mini-breaks; I guess many people go away five or six times a year instead of taking a summer holiday. When I was a child we were very fortunate as my grandparents lived on the Sussex coast so we spent a fortnight there every summer as well as a week somewhere else. These were not usually exotic; we went to York and the West Country, though one year we had a week self-catering in Amsterdam. That was great. I wonder how much joy people get from going away so often; I remember every detail of that holiday and it stands out in my memory. Mind you, it’s very dull here in the Midlands so I wouldn’t mind being somewhere else right now – like Scotland for instance, where it’s almost certainly dull and wet too…

We didn’t do anything particularly wonderful for our Bank Holiday weekend; we had a couple of viewings on Saturday so I went to sit in the park for a while, then in the afternoon there was a poetry gig at the Moonface which was nice although the audience was small. On Sunday I was very tired and basically spent the afternoon falling asleep in front of Netflix; the light has been waking me up every morning around five and then I don’t get back to sleep. I’ve got a sleep mask but OH reckons the light has an effect on the pineal gland and it’s a bit harder to put a mask on that. Yesterday we went for a walk towards the Outwoods, which was nice – and in the afternoon we sorted some things out and I did some freecycling. So that was my weekend. We had some encouraging feedback from the viewing so we’ll wait and see if they make an offer. And that’s us up to date.

Kirk out

3 thoughts on “Fiesta? What Fiesta?

  1. I rarely travel anywhere on a Bank Holiday because of traffic and crowds. But last weekend we had things arranged so it couldn’t be avoided. Now I feel as if I need the whole day today to recover.

    Best wishes, Pete.

  2. I’m never sure if synchronicity is something which happens more often if we believe in it [and hence look for it regularly] but your use of “fiesta” made me smile, because this word is a feature of the Duets script I’m acting in at the weekend; my partner & I are ready for the audience now, and looking forward to it, even though we’re only performing it twice in public. I like to think that holidays are less important now that I am retired and I have managed to create a life which I can enjoy all the time [is that “humblebragging”? Not sure], but a change of scene can be enjoyable, if……. [enter all the usual potential problems to be avoided here]. I’m aiming to spend a week in the old home town with my older brother in a few months’ time, partly to check if the reports I’ve read about it going rather downhill are to be believed. My Bank Holiday was a regular day for me, but when one is working, it’s always good to have a ‘spare’ day. Cheers, Jon.

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