Holiday

Mondays are normally quiet, but today turned out to be even quieter than usual. It was a holiday here today in France - something religious called Pentecost, which apparently refers to the fiftieth day after Easter and marks the day that the Holy Ghost descended from heaven and appeared before the apostles (and yes I did know that without having to look it up). Therefore, it is a moveable holiday and this year is especially early because Easter was early.

What I find interesting about it is that in France the holiday follows the movement of Easter in the calendar, whereas in the UK it doesn't. In the UK, Pentecost is known as Whit Sunday or Whitsun - and whilst Easter moves around the calendar dependent on the moon or whatever, Whitsun is always the last Monday in May - so we move Easter every year but keep Whitsun the same - doesn't make political or religious sense to me, but then when did anything claiming to be political or religious sense actually make any sense.

What is much more interesting is the complete and utter stagnation of the French economy over the last two weeks. You might think it would be hard to notice a change of pace of an economy moving at snails pace but I assure you that it has been especially hard to get anything achieved here over the last fortnight.

By my reckoning, since the close of business (at 4.45pm) on 30th April, most of France has worked at best three whole days in the last twelve.

May day was the Workers Holiday, introduced in the depths of time to give the poor oppressed downtrodden workers a day of respite from their capitalist overlords - surely the most redundant excuse for a holiday there could be in France today but jealously guarded by all true Socialists, which every Frenchman becomes around this time of year.

The 8th of May is VE day and marks the liberty of France from the Nazi oppressor in 1945 - a day when every true Frenchman claims to have either actually played a huge part in driving the Germans out of the country and to have been a true patriot and staunch member of the resistance and to have never ever collaborated with the enemy, or to be descended from someone just like that.

Finally today was Pentecost, and everyone went to church to give thanks for the Lord Jesus or just stayed at home in bed and muttered a prayer or two. Our French friends were planning a weekend in St Tropez, which says everything about the religious devotion of French catholics, and were only denied by the atrocious weather forecast ahead of the holiday.

Three holidays, four days of weekend and two days that fell between holidays and weekends which weren't worth going into work for - and I bet a lot of people didn't bother with the other three days either. 'Mon Dieu' - you might say.

It was business as usual at 42rvh though. Breakfast for the guests in the Studio and then get the Apartment ready (just in time) for new arrivals around lunchtime and finish last nights washing up, spend an hour or so doing admin and answering emails, check with Chris that all was ok with the upstairs renovation (and get the latest Chris and Patrick exploits from the weekend - those boys are going to get the wrong reputation in this town!), a trip to Tridome (shockingly open for business) for some materials and hopefully an early night.