Fridays

It’s like, it’s always Friday. I look away, turn back, it’s Friday!

Every Friday, one of us will say, ‘Friday again’ or with more emphasis ‘It’s Friday. Again!’ We know it’s insane but it’s become a thing these last years for some reason. Time just zooms by and, bosh, it’s Friday, again. A wee in-joke we enjoy. We should get out more I know. Our excuse for now is, of course, nobody can go anywhere, but we’ll probably not stop just because we can go out again. It has been years already, so…

Friday did used to be the night eh? Going way back, it was payday! Wee brown envelope, decimated by the time he got home with it (but that’s another story). An end of the week that developed into TGIF! Followed by the Sunday night scrabbling for any excuse not to have to go in on Monday… oh, so often been on the phone trying to sound hoarse, bilious, in pain of some sort… ‘can’t. come. in. so. sick’ (in best feeble voice). But Friday, yes. Free! Straight from work, right to the pub… yahoo!

I didn’t grow up in a home with ‘fish on Friday’ and was amazed to discover that others did… ‘mince on Monday, stew on Tuesday...' etc. so I never continued doing so with my own family. It was just potluck, what I could be bothered making and Fridays weren’t scheduled particularly. Over the years Friday morphed into ‘school’s out’ and then ‘what do we do with the kids over the weekend?’ Then, later, ‘let’s see what concerts are on?’ (Then loads of those changed to Tuesdays. What was that about?’) Then it was the years of Fridays shrieking ‘where the hell is she? Not home yet?’ which seemed to last a while, one errant child taking over from the other.

Fridays have long been anonymous entirely though, in this house. No boss to turn up for, not in years now. Both of us, for different reasons but equally relaxing. He, way longer than me. The most mention is of ‘what programme’s on tonight?’ and Fridays are never that great - I do like 'Friday Night Dinners' though funnily enough, makes me laugh, but not being Jewish, it was never a thing here. Being official pensioners does actually set you off reminiscing for sure. I suppose a lot of the nights out we could speak of were actual Fridays. Saturdays of course were different again. It was Fridays really... changing at work to get out straight from there... none of your not even going out until 10pm like they do now. Man, the pubs were shut by then! I have barely ever drunk much, it was more just being there and going home smelling like an old ashtray from all the cigarette smoke. Never did like that mind. Long time ago now. I was always the one sleeping in a corner while others partied on.

But now it just seems to BE Friday. The rest of the week seems to whizz by and Friday has taken on the role of marker. Marking our lives out. Lockdown hasn’t helped I’m sure. This last year of going nowhere, staying safe, has been very strange. No visits, no holidays (so no travel, ‘leaving on Friday’) no meet-ups, no gigs, no dates marked in the diary at all (barring hospitals and doctors!), no grandkids, no fun... and then suddenly, it’s Friday again. We just seemed to notice it all of a sudden. It could have been a Monday, or a Wednesday or any other day, but we seemed to have gravitated to Fridays. So that’s the aim these days… get to the next Friday so we can say ‘It’s Friday. Again!’

And then, writing this, I looked at my calendar. It’s Thursday.