A Day To Remember.

Another public holiday is had.

One feels kind of cheated when a public holiday falls on a Saturday, but we shouldn't complain as five out of seven is fine and the other two ( Saturday & Sunday ) can be fattened up by sandwiching them between two days of leave. Tomorrow is Nationalfeiertag, which is yet another chance to be thankful for living in a peaceful and functioning democracy. Not everyone has that privilege.

Driving through to Rechnitz this morning I couldn't help but notice a whole fleet of flags at full mast outside the local fire station and tomorrow on the day itself, many private homes will have hoisted their red and white flag.

While I was feeding our cat contingency outside ( unfortunately I have to supervise and stand guard as one is more than greedy and sharing is not on its menu ) I could hear that easy going banter of friends getting together on the eve of a longish weekend. Some have been given today off and as it coincided with yet another unseasonable warm day, the charcoal of many a Weber will be fired up.

The shops of course were filled with must-have food to survive the weekend without being able to shop during it, and obligingly many shoppers were making use of it just in case they might be confronted with starvation in the next couple of days. Even I hastened to a shop conditioned over the years to heed the shopping-drill of an impending long weekend, but soon realized that we have everything we need at home. Of course the genre of food we live on, fresh produce, was marked down drastically and I took advantage of it.

As much as we take public holidays for granted and a chance to do nothing, we shouldn't forget to reflect on their importance and meaning. Luckily most of us have an encyclopedia inside our pockets and hopefully we'll make use of it...one forgets that a mere thirty years ago we had to leg it to a library to find out stuff like that. Now that is something else to be thankful for!

Biggi