What makes a weekend?

Now that I am working so much less I have many week days to myself to fill however I please. This is quite a luxury and I am in no doubt that it's a wonderful thing.  I love having these week days as the rest of the world struggles on trains, cars and buses to get to the office, the shop or the school.  I get to lie in bed for that bit longer and contemplate how to spend my day.

Yet, even with all these days off, I still have a different feeling about weekends.  Weekends are extra special.  Ralph isn't out at work, even though he often spends time working at home, and there is less self-induced pressure to get up in the morning and start usefully moving about. As most long-time couples we have a sort of routine to our Saturdays and Sundays.  They usually begin with a discussion about who's turn it is to get the weekend newspapers.  A few years ago we decided to stop getting our daily newspaper delivered.  A needless expense and also neither of us had time to read the paper before setting off for work.  So now we get lots of newspapers at weekends.

Breakfast is also different.  We often eat the same thing as we do all week - two slices of my yummy home-baked wholewheat bread toasted with orange marmalade and a cup of espresso for Ralph and often porridge with blueberries for me, but we eat together at the dining room table surrounded by newspapers.  We each read our preferred sections and I usually interrupt Ralph's reading to share interesting bits of news.  I love the slow pace of the morning and the quiet companionship we share.

I remember a Simon and Garfunkel song that went:
"Slow down you move too fast,
You got to make the morning last...

Even though I could sit quietly and read the papers and slowly savor breakfast on other days it just feels lovely when I can share the time with Ralph. After over 40 years together and countless weekends, I still love the Sunday morning feeling.  Lying in bed, planning the day, jettisoning plans,and delightfully going back to bed after breakfast for a sneaky late morning snooze, just feels great.

There is a group called Slow Movement (http://www.slowmovement.com) and their philosophy is about slowing down our lives and living more mindfully. The thought is that we live our lives in such a high-pressured and stressful way that we don't take the time to stop and notice any of the positive delights or warning signposts throughout our daily lives. The consequences of rushing about in this way may simply be that we live a life of stress and pressure, but we may also fall prey to illness and general unhappiness that can impact on all the areas of our lives.

Sometimes I can remember to stop and connect with the world around me.  At other times I run around in a fog of stress and can't connect with anything, much less an inner core of self that is always still.  This slow down philosophy is about this connection.  The one place that is always at its own pace and is never in a hurry is in nature. Whether it is at the sea or in the forest there is a timelessness that I can experience, but that often makes me conscious of my own time-bound existence. The slower and more gently the world moves, the more aware I am of my lack of stillness.

At the weekends I would sometimes arrange to go out early on a Saturday and do the shopping while Ralph showered and generally met the day at a pace I judged to be too slow.  I do this less now.  I prefer to also slow down and wait for him, or rather do things I enjoy .  I see that there is no need to rush out and buy groceries since we live in a city with 24/7shopping.  I can go out anytime, why rush in the morning?  It's a hard habit to break, but I'm working on it.

As life gets slower, food also gets slower.  There is a slow food movement to counter the ubiquitous fast food - things that take time and care to produce as opposed to assembly line rapid fire food that we have become accustomed to.  I was waiting in a coffee shop  a few days ago and realised I was irritated with having to wait an extra minute or two for my coffee.  What a nonsensical situation - an extra minute of waiting being a cause of irritation.

Living slowly and mindfully involves me in a complete shift of consciousness. At least I can begin to do this at weekends.  Saturday and Sunday seem ideally suited as starting points to relax, turn over, sleep more, eat slowly, walk not drive and enjoy the world.