I’m not quite sure who else has “bank holidays” in the world. I certainly didn’t know about bank holidays until I moved to the UK. As far as I was concerned, when I read the phrase in books I was reading, it was just that, a bank holiday, a day when the bank is closed. In the UK, it’s not quite as straightforward. Yes, it’s a day when banks are closed and yes, it’s a public holiday as well.
Sir John Lubbock drafted a piece of legislation which became known as the Bank Holiday Bill as it passed through the UK Parliament. The bill proposed for banks to be closed on certain days. Banks would be closed to the public and consumers and no financial transactions were allowed on these days. Initially it was just banks and financial institutions that would close. That’s as far as I remember. I can’t remember when they included public holidays (of which there are usually 8 in total, in the UK). I think there’s more information on this in the Life In the UK Test reviewer books (it’s a test that you need to pass if you want to qualify to live in the UK permanently or become a British citizen). But I took my Life In the UK test (and passed) in 2010 and I don’t remember most of the things I faithfully reviewed then!
I don’t necessarily have any plans for the bank holiday but I find that I want to go out out! But at the same time, I feel all peopled out this week and just the idea of getting up, getting ready and pasting a smile on my face and being sociable is exhausting me! It makes me want to hide under the duvet!
It is actually the last bank holiday until Christmas and I kind of feel like I have to do something…although strictly speaking, I don’t think Christmas day is a bank holiday…?
Sometimes I think all this working-from-home flexibility is bad for my socialising skills. I probably need to flex my socialising muscles more but sometimes it feels like so much hard work. I’d much rather stay in bed and read a book (or five) or binge-watch a TV series. Or catch up with friends and family, either in the Philippines or somewhere else in the world. Although it’s not to say I’m not up to seeing friends…just certain friends…! Yeah I’ll stop talking about that as it does make me sound like a horrible grinch of a person.
Then there is that minefield of sharing the same language game as the people you have to talk to. I tend to have two conversations going on: the one where I say socially accepted things out loud and contribute to the conversation, and the one in my head where I say things like “Oh my gawd! Really? You actually said that out loud?” or my favourite “Yeah, you know EVERYTHING!” It also helps if I look away as I do tend to roll my eyes or raise an eyebrow. I also tend to bite my tongue a lot to keep myself from letting the internal conversations come out in a torrent of verbal diarrhoea because then I will pretty much become the social pariah that I am also afraid of becoming. I tend to have a very caustic tongue if I let myself actually say the things I want to say. I’ve learned to my detriment that my editorial button needs to be activated all the time. The world isn’t necessarily ready for the pure version of Yelly sarcasm or forthrightness.
So, what are your plans for the bank holiday weekend, then?
Yellywelly 