Monday Monday and why I love Fridays

Mondays are usually such busy days aren't they?

The first day back at work , all systems a gogo from the moment the alarm shrills, there's a sense of urgency, and even excitement,  and a sense of "What will happen this week?"


But today is a Bank Holiday here in England , an official day off and the last one until Christmas. I adore bank holiday Mondays ...they are days which seem to give you carte blanche to do exactly what you will, whether it be going out , meeting up with friends or just slobbing about the house, reading, listening to music or having a doze on the sofa. Today I'm off to the allotment to pick apples and Victoria plums and perhaps if I feel the urge, do some weeding.

So a lovely day, but even though I love my job, Fridays are my favourite days.   For many, they mark the end of the working week, the beginning of the weekend and freedom for a couple of days.

 For years I've worked on a Friday. They've always been a complete rush, as it's a  busy day in a newsroom. You're making packages and features, and orb booking guests for the Monday  breakfast programme. Often stories fall down at the last minute, and you have to pull something out of the bag,chase a fresh angle or a different story, and you can't leave until everything is done.

This always seemed to happen when it was a Friday fizz night with friends which happens once or twice a month.  I was always the last to arrive. A bottle and a half of prosecco would have been polished off , some nibbles and canapés already eaten and lots of gossip already done, dusted and dissected before I'd got a foot through the door.

That's all different now though as I now get Fridays off....and I am bloody well loving it. Arriving on time for Fizz Night, food shopping all done leisurely instead of battling the hordes at Waitrose on a Saturday, and time to walk the dogs, see friends, go to the allotment or read.

 On one Friday each month a group of friends all meet for lunch to critique each others work and have lunch. This month , four of us  drove off to Grantchester for work news, chat, and a chance to see one of our latest books hot off the press - Pippa Goodhart's The Great Sea Dragon Discovery . Brilliant book , and stunning cover ....

Last Thursday night, my darling daughter, her husband and dog all arrived, so Friday was a heady mix of shopping, wine tasting and lunch, and that was all before 2.30pm.

An hour or so later though the dogs made it quite clear (there were four at home) decided that they wanted another walk, so my son in law and I nipped off in the car to the canal a couple of miles away.

A quiet part of the canal where we could have a gentle stroll. There was no one around, only the cows to our left through the hedge who were on their way to afternoon milking.....

















I love this part of the Grand Union Canal....

It may be only twenty two miles away from Leicester where I work, but it's a whole world away from there in terms of noise, bustle  and the start of the Friday leave work early traffic. 


We didn't see anyone else apart from a couple who waved as they passed us by...

Birdsong, the gentle mooing of the cows, chatting with Harry and watching the dogs all enjoying their walk ...what a lovely way of recharging my batteries on a Friday afternoon.

Simple pleasures make me smile...

Then it was time to load the dogs back into the car, and driving home, up the lane
















with a goodbye from this lot...
















to begin cooking supper for eight of us and trying out the new wines we tasted earlier.

Relaxing around the table until it was dark...and still the chatter continued by candlelight. Bliss....

Each Friday is different, and quite a few Fridays this Autumn are going to spent writing, but it's a delicious feeling knowing that Friday means fun, freedom, fizz and friends.

Here's to Fridays which for me are the best day of the week, whatever I do.....

Days of being a gongoozler

I bet I can guess what you're thinking ....what on earth is a gongoozler?

 Well my dears, it means that I am someone who's interested in canals and canal life , but who doesn't have a canal boat or live on a canal. It's thought that the word was slang used by canal workers to describe an observer standing apparently idle on the towpath.

But I do live very close to Foxton Locks, which in the canal world is quite something. It's a place on the Grand Union Canal in Leicestershire .There's ten locks here ....in two staircases each with five locks, which makes Foxton the largest flight of staircase locks here on the English canal system.
 Staircase locks are used so that a canal can climb a steep hill. Really.

Anyway, Foxton Locks in the summer attracts visitors from miles around. The sun shining on lots of holidaymakers on canal boats, people out for a walk, for a drink, or a meal. I've been coming here since I was a child, usually in summertime. I've brought my own children here, family and friends from all over the world..and in winter too, when wrapped up warmly , it was the ideal place for the children to have an early afternoon walk, to see the swans, ducks, boats and the locks being worked.

But it's only recently I've been coming later in the day. I love it in late autumn and winter when the fading four o clock in the afternoon light brings out the shadows



And a walk on a weekday winter's afternoon means that you have the place to yourself apart from a few other dog walkers.

And a few people living on the canal....

It was cold yesterday afternoon, the sort of cold which you can taste....with a scent of wood smoke in the air



Remember I mentioned staircase locks? Here's what they look like from near their lowest point.....

They are an amazing feat of ingenuity, building and engineering, which were finished in 1814, when coal, wood, materials and feedstuffs were transported on the canals by donkeys or shire horses pulling the boats, when there was a working community along all of our canals. It's no wonder that the Locks are Grade 2 listed.

At the bottom of the locks, there's two pubs which in high summer are packed with people, both inside and outside, spilling out on the decks here at the Foxton Locks Inn and in the pub garden at Bridge 61.

 

We walked towards the twinkly lights of  Bridge 61, which serves real ales....

 

 

which has a timeless quality about it. Originally two large sheds built a hundred years after the locks, it's now a spit and sawdust sort of place, but with a lovely warm fire burning and the type of old cast iron radiators that I used to burn my bottom leaning against at school. Mr Thinking of the Days , Boo and I were the only customers and we had a lovely chat with the owner who's a fount of knowledge about the Locks, having been there for fifty years or so.

And out of the window, we could see across to the well lit Foxton Locks Inn ...and that was also virtually empty

 

 

One drink, and it was time to go, but there was a delicious sense of having played hookey on a November day at the bewitching hour between day and night  ....a chance to see the shapes and shadows changing as dusk fell.

 

On a weekday normally I don't get that chance ....my back is firmly turned away from the windows at the other end of the newsroom at that time...hunched over my computer, headphones on, editing an interview, or furiously writing a cue for a feature on tomorrow's breakfast show. Being busy but missing the atmospheric end of an afternoon . 

 

 

 

 

 

And as we headed home, we looked at the lights on the boats and I wondered at those curled up inside who love their life on the waterways. In all my time as a gongoozler, perhaps it's time that I actually got myself on a canal boat, untied the rope and finally set off to find out more......