Do we need more bank holidays? Deciding where to walk. Failing to go to the moon.

It’s August Bank holiday Monday. The last bank holiday until Christmas!  I read that union leaders have demanded the creation of four more bank holidays to bring the country in line with European nations. The UK typically gets around eight bank holidays per year, while the EU average stands at 12.3.

Liz Truss has suggested that Britain needs to work harder. TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has said: “Some politicians have been calling UK workers lazy but we work some of the longest hours in Europe. And we get the fewest public holidays. After today, there are no more public holidays until Christmas. Instead of insulting workers, let’s show more gratitude to our nation of grafters.”

There you go!

Of course, now that we are retired people all this makes precious little difference to our lives. Back when I was a sixth form college teacher, we would already have had a week of in service training and then the enrolment of new students. This would be our last holiday and tomorrow would see induction day for new students and then full timetable until the half term break. 

Instead of planning what to do with my teaching week, I am contemplating where to go for a walk today. The weather promises cloud and a gentle breeze. There is, however, a 5% to 10% chance of rain. Yesterday we walked out in sunshine to go up Lark Hill. Before we reached the bottom of the steep lane up to the top of Lark Hill the sun had disappeared behind clouds. Up at the top we met an elderly lady whose daughters I used to teach. She was equipped with her raincoat and declared us with our bare arms and no obvious bag containing raincoats, more optimistic than she was. But we dodged the rain. Maybe today we will be less fortunate and so we should take our raincoats with us.

Over in the USA they have just failed to launch a rocket to the moon. They have a couple more “windows” in the next week and after that the rocket will need to go back to the workshop for “tweaking”. I am in two minds about all this shooting rockets up into space. I understand all the arguments about the experiments that can be done up there that can’t be done here, the technical advances and so on but I can’t help feeling that all that money could be better spent on other things. One commentator said that the UK’s commitment amounted to £1 per inhabitant of our islands. Individually that might not be much but maybe it could have ben put towards something immediately useful, like solving the problems of leaks in our water supply. Oh, dear! I think I am turning into a luddite! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!