Saturday

It can’t be Saturday again. It was only Saturday yesterday. I did housework and my neighbour even cut their grass.

Some people are beginning to know the day of the week again because they are back at work but in our house with a teacher in school holidays, a retired old man and two people who work weird shifts, we are never quite sure.

Even when you don’t work a Monday to Friday 9-5 a Saturday still feels different. As a child, it was my least favourite day. Sometimes you’d be dragged around the shops, with only a fruit loaf from Cottis’ to cheer you up. Other times it would just be one long stretch of boredom without even the prospect of a Sunday roast, black and white film and bar of Dairy Milk to cheer things up. Saturdays were busy adult days. You might get to help Dad bleed the brakes on the mini (Mini brakes always needed bleeding), or stand and watch the neighbour trim his privet hedge, with its antiseptic smell. You might, if it was raining, be allowed to stay inside but only if you were quiet and didn’t mess up any of the housework that had been done.

As you get older, for some reason, you get nostalgic. There is a tendency to look back and remember only the good things but I think Saturdays have always been the worst day of the week.