So what is a broken vacation in this context? That’s when the weekend arrives and you can’t go “Yahoo, I’m on vacation” because you have to go in on Monday to sort things out. Then you can say “Yahoo I’m on vacation” for all of 6 days! 9 days vs 6 days.
That being said “Yahoo I’m on a broken vacation”!
I slept in until 7:30 this morning while Cherie and Thumper sat on my shoulder and my head trying to make me get up. Finally they gave in and curled up beside me and fell asleep again. At 7:30 Cherie poked me in the eye indicating enough was enough. Slow and easy coffee and toast in the sunroom, putzed around my flowers and then schlepped to the office to think of something to write about.
So where did vacation come from? As far back as Egyptian times there were rich people who took vacations from their regular home base. However I was very surprised to learn that William the Conqueror created the summer vacation break for the universities to facilitate the harvest way back in the 11th century! For the middle class family though vacations weren’t common until the middle of the last century and even then they would usually go to a local lake or cottage area for a week. The lower middle classes never expected to go on a vacation until when? I can’t say for sure. When I see movies from the 1960’s it seemed everyone went on some kind of vacation. It was very American or Canadian. It was unheard of in my family. I was 18 years old when I went to Denmark for 4 months and that was my first vacation in my whole life. Seriously.
On this vacation I plan to stay home to do the autumn shutdown of the garden, do a little harvesting of apples (apple pies and apple sauce are on the horizon) and perhaps tackle the indoors as well. Somewhere in all of this I will squeeze in a few hours to loll on the deck with a good book or good company. I like quiet time alone to reflect on life, enjoy the nature around me, and make things perfect for the winter. I know it won’t last but I enjoy the effort anyway.
While summer is my favourite season I really do enjoy a warm autumn. When I visit my sister in Ontario we would go for walks in the woods and that is the ultimate autumn experience. The variety of trees makes for the most glorious display of fall colours, reds, oranges, yellows, browns, purples while here we have yellow and yellow. Pretty dull comparison but the crunch of the leaves is just the same. I like the crunch of leaves under foot and the whole idea of the earth going to sleep for a little while. Sometimes I wish I could do that too, just hibernate over the nasty winter months and wake up to the sweet smell of spring.
Vacation - here I come!
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