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RAB MCNEIL: Friday, it’s a blessing and a curse

At Happy Hour on a Friday the butler will bring Rab a gin and tonic the size of Wales.
At Happy Hour on a Friday the butler will bring Rab a gin and tonic the size of Wales.

Here’s a day that vexes me: Friday. Oh, I love it. Possibly, it’s even my favourite day (or at least evening), though it must vie with Saturday for that accolade.

Both are similar for me: they’re non-work days. Now, Saturday isn’t so problematic. It’s fitba’ day, and there are programmes a-plenty on the telly and radio to distract me.

At a loose end

But Friday: the rest of the world is still working, and here’s me at a loose end. On Thursday evenings, I compile a to-do list, hoping to utilise the following day wisely.

The list is a mixter-maxter of DIY and gardening tasks, sandwiched in between creative projects (that will never come to fruition).

In practice, I lie in bed a bit later. Then I get up and read all the papers, and do a couple of puzzles, or maybe four, and email a mate and get into a discussion and, next thing, the afternoon is well under way.

‘Perhaps I ought to go outside’

So, I have my lunch, and tidy things up, and twiddle about on the guitar, and then think: ‘Perhaps, I ought to go outside at some point.’

So, I go out and commune with the birds, then I come back in and have a cup of coffee as I catch up with the fast-changing world of news. Again.

Then I see it’s 4 o’clock, so I hurry to get at least one task half-done before the advent of Happy Hour, when my butler brings in the tray containing a gin and tonic the size of Wales. And, to all intents and purposes, that’s the day done.

Part of the problem is lack of a deadline. They’re a pain in the neck, but on work days they give me something for which to aim.

You can’t muck about with them or put them off. Gotta do the work. Indeed, Wednesdays and Thursdays are hellish for me in that regard.

Aaah it’s Friday

Hence why, initially, I breathe a sigh of relief on waking up and realising it’s Friday.

But another problem in using Friday wisely is that the armchair in the sitting room is a magnet to my bottom.

I go out, encounter a problem, then come back in to sit and Google: “How do you join one bit of wood to another?” Or just: “Why am I so handless?”

Or I go on Amazon for tools, the latest being something to cut metal, which I order and which, of course, doesn’t work. That’s what tools are – things that don’t work.

The armchair trap

The amount of time spent in my armchair worries me. You’re not supposed to sit any more. It kills you. But here I am. And, every time I try to get away, it drags me back.

Recently, someone told me she did 30,000 steps in a day. You’re supposed to do at least 10,000. Some days, I’m lucky if I manage 100.

Even the walk along the Lonely Shore and up the Hilly Forest – usually the most I’ll do on any day – is only 2,000. There and back.

I need self-discipline. But, on deciding this, I just end up Googling it or seeing if Amazon has any books on the subject.

And, all the time, I’m sitting, sitting. And getting nothing done. Particularly on a Friday.

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