Sunday 7th August 2011

Sunday Sunday so good to me, as the refrain I remember from one of Adrian’s records went. (Don’t ask me who, I have long ago forgotten, and rarely listen to pop music these days) But Sunday Sunday is not always so good.  When one is retired, or not needing to work, as has been my situation for many, many years now, that wonderful elation one gets at the prospect of the weekend, those two days when work is no more, and one has a new-found freedom.  The actuality is all too often that the days are wasted, of course, but there is no replacing that Friday night feeling.

I can remember the few years after Adrian, when my hotel colleagues and I would set off for the pub for a few drinks.  All of a sudden, the cares and woes of the working week were behind us, and a daft sort of mood would take us over.  They were some of the happiest memories I had of that time. The disappointments I had suffered at both at the hands of Grandma and Adrian were in the past now, and I could relax and just be one of the girls.  A feeling I had never had before.  I was never really a joiner-in, I don’t know why.  Even at school I was actually a complete loner.  Jennie and Gwennie seemed to like me for some reason, and though I was generally quite indifferent to other girls, it was no hardship to go along with them and be their friend.  It made schooldays a bit more interesting, but I was not surprised that as soon as school was over, and we went our separate ways, I hardly heard from them.  But my work colleagues, especially Rosemary and Gillian have kept in touch, and Rosemary and her second husband Trevor even came out to Tuscany one year.  They live in Maidstone and they are constantly asking me to go and spend a weekend with them, but I think not.  I find it easier on my own.  I mean what do you say when they inevitably ask how I am getting on without Edward.  So I mostly spend my weekends alone, and I find Sundays particularly tedious.  I sometimes think I should work again, just for that weekend experience, but really, what would I do? Maybe I should contact the Hospice again and see if they need any help. Or maybe I should try another book.  Fiction this time, I think. Or perhaps just more fictitious than last time.