It’s the end of the conventional working nine to five week. In our collective mentality in the UK, it conjures up images of day trips out for the family with the children. For some, this means hikes in the countryside up mountains or across dales, museum trips or visits to aquariums, zoos or the seaside.
However, many find comfort and pleasure in home time. On freezing cold days, all ages like to curl up with a hot drink to get lost in their favourite novel on Kindle or in hard copy, lounge on their bed or sofa listening to their favourite music or a podcast or maybe text friends and surf the Internet for good online shopping offers in clothes and footwear to click and collect later.
Summer, thankfully, offers the opportunity for good family time, such as barbecues with grandparents, while the kids play on slides or go in the paddling pool in the back garden.
I have many happy memories of such days. I remember out pet kitten called Toby leaping up at a butterfly, while my amazing Gran, who lived with us sunned herself in a deck chair and I pottered around in a cotton dress my Mum had made.
Out of the two days, Sunday has a character of its own. For those in my own ethnicity (white northern and British), it means a roast dinner; mainly roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with roast potatoes and two or three veg, followed by a pudding with custard or apple pie with cream and ending with a drink of tea.
As a poet, here is my own take on weekends.
Week-End
1.
Saturday, Sunday,
Chill-out time days,
Laze and lie in ways,
to savour your novel
over cocoa
and a biscuit bar
for dunking,
Lunch with friends
a blaze of chatter
in artsy cafes.
2.
For families,
Away-days beckon,
Seaside haunts with fairs,
Fortune tellers, fish shops
or forest trails
Cracking with bracken,
Cities with story,
Back-in-time tours,
a window into the why,
how and who of today.
3.
For those with cash,
the beckoning break,
Reality paradise,
Driveaways, fly-aways
Coasts, Coves and Castles
to rediscover romance
and each other,
Say the things you should say,
Find harmony in love,
But these things have a price.
If you don’t believe me, maybe you should take a look at Taylor Swift’s account she shared online about her holiday stay in actor Dominic West’s Irish castle (at the cost of £14,000 a night).
She didn’t spend a weekend there, but at £28,000 for two nights, I am sure many people would be tempted to make their holiday there a short stay!
Taylor Swift's week-end
From the pop star’s account, the holiday she enjoyed sounds fantastic, from photographs of the property, it looks like a dream and being a historical tour guide in London, boy, would I like to stay in that castle!
It would make me feel like a queen in somewhere like Hampton Court.
However, even if I had that kind of money, I personally would feel guilty because of the amount of people suffering homelessness and facing illegal evictions on account of the lax laws of our land that don’t protect innocent citizens.
For the more normal people that people like you and I are likely to run into, (unless you have your own caravan), holiday companies go full belt with temptations to potential customers. They promise city breaks, seaside locations or country hideaways. Another option for some is to have their own holiday pad – an apartment or holiday cottage – which means, of course, you always have to go to the same place, which is not everyone’s cup of tea.
It is the latter situation that inspires creative writers and composers.
Fiction writers seem to enjoy exploring the dark side of humanity through this short break, the weekend from hell.
Weekend, a short story by Fay Weldon is set in a weekend cottage where the central character finds herself in the same situation as her female forbears, in spite of being allowed to earn money.
It is a feminist take on 1970s Britain, when gender roles were still clearly defined.
The other female in the story, Katie does not offer empathy based on gender to the downtrodden wife and mother. There is no sense of sisterhood.
The protagonist, Martha, whose point of view the story revolves around, is also shown as being complicit in people using her.
The work offers a cynical view about human nature, as though sexual relationships are all about power struggles and there is no room for the fine sides of human nature like tenderness and romance.
In a similar vein, the page-turner set in Lisbon, A Weekend Away, by Sarah Alderson conjures up a sense of the Saturday and Sunday from hell when the central character’s horrible friend goes missing and sleazy, vile characters pop up all over the place.
Personally, I found the ending rather too far-fetched for my liking and implausible that all these horrible people could come into contact with one decent person, or that the subject of the book would not have concluded far sooner than she did just how awful her so-called friend was.
Nevertheless, there is a good chapter-by-chapter hook to want you to read on and it is certainly entertaining reading.
The reality for many is that weekends are pretty uneventful for most people.
It seems appropriate to end the blog on a happier note, especially considering how things have been moving internationally.
Something to lift peoples’ spirits in these uncertain and shadowy times is surely the great song Weekend in New England.
The song reflects New Yorkers’ liking for a short, romantic coastal holiday accessible by a drive up the coast to the states of New England where, as the song says, they can enjoy the “long rocky beaches.”
Penned by Randy Edelman, an American musician, producer and composer, he recorded it for his 1975 album Farewell Fairbanks.
How it became a hit recorded by Barry Manilow, well, thereby hangs a tale.
Edelman made changes to his composition after the President of Arista Records, Clive Davis, who wanted Barry Manilow to record it convinced him that simplification of the verses could make it a hit.
The rest is history.
So why not click on the link below, lie back and enjoy this great song?
From the pop star’s account, the holiday she enjoyed sounds fantastic, from photographs of the property, it looks like a dream and being a historical tour guide in London, boy, would I like to stay in that castle!
It would make me feel like a queen in somewhere like Hampton Court.
However, even if I had that kind of money, I personally would feel guilty because of the amount of people suffering homelessness and facing illegal evictions on account of the lax laws of our land that don’t protect innocent citizens.
For the more normal people that people like you and I are likely to run into, (unless you have your own caravan), holiday companies go full belt with temptations to potential customers. They promise city breaks, seaside locations or country hideaways. Another option for some is to have their own holiday pad – an apartment or holiday cottage – which means, of course, you always have to go to the same place, which is not everyone’s cup of tea.
It is the latter situation that inspires creative writers and composers.
Fiction writers seem to enjoy exploring the dark side of humanity through this short break, the weekend from hell.
Weekend, a short story by Fay Weldon is set in a weekend cottage where the central character finds herself in the same situation as her female forbears, in spite of being allowed to earn money.
It is a feminist take on 1970s Britain, when gender roles were still clearly defined.
The other female in the story, Katie does not offer empathy based on gender to the downtrodden wife and mother. There is no sense of sisterhood.
The protagonist, Martha, whose point of view the story revolves around, is also shown as being complicit in people using her.
The work offers a cynical view about human nature, as though sexual relationships are all about power struggles and there is no room for the fine sides of human nature like tenderness and romance.
In a similar vein, the page-turner set in Lisbon, A Weekend Away, by Sarah Alderson conjures up a sense of the Saturday and Sunday from hell when the central character’s horrible friend goes missing and sleazy, vile characters pop up all over the place.
Personally, I found the ending rather too far-fetched for my liking and implausible that all these horrible people could come into contact with one decent person, or that the subject of the book would not have concluded far sooner than she did just how awful her so-called friend was.
Nevertheless, there is a good chapter-by-chapter hook to want you to read on and it is certainly entertaining reading.
The reality for many is that weekends are pretty uneventful for most people.
It seems appropriate to end the blog on a happier note, especially considering how things have been moving internationally.
Something to lift peoples’ spirits in these uncertain and shadowy times is surely the great song Weekend in New England.
The song reflects New Yorkers’ liking for a short, romantic coastal holiday accessible by a drive up the coast to the states of New England where, as the song says, they can enjoy the “long rocky beaches.”
Penned by Randy Edelman, an American musician, producer and composer, he recorded it for his 1975 album Farewell Fairbanks.
How it became a hit recorded by Barry Manilow, well, thereby hangs a tale.
Edelman made changes to his composition after the President of Arista Records, Clive Davis, who wanted Barry Manilow to record it convinced him that simplification of the verses could make it a hit.
The rest is history.
So why not click on the link below, lie back and enjoy this great song?
Barry Manilow - Weekend In New England
Thanks for reading. Have a good week-end,
Thanks for reading. Have a good week-end,
Anne G. Dilley
1 comments:
This was a fun read, Anne. Thanks. The poem is great, I love it. So many great lines and observations (a blaze of chatter in artsy cafes, Cracking with bracken, Back-in-time tours etc).
Having retired a while ago, week-ends don't have quite the same relevance as they used to, except for those rites that are still only scheduled on a Saturday or Sunday (and that's football for me).
Here's a question for you. My musical tastes are extensive and I like many contemporary bands... so should I be checking out Taylor Swift? Is she better than the likes of Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Lama del Ray One Direction etc who I've tended to dismiss as frothy teen music?
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