By the time you read this we should be away on holiday, somewhere off the coast of Norway enjoying a trip we had planned, booked and paid for before Covid derailed everyone’s best intentions. I will believe it when we get there, such is the effect of the last two years of changed plans and disappointments on my confidence in the stability of my diary.
I have noted before here that I grew up on a farm. For me, childhood, August and holiday could not be used in the same sentence because of the arable harvest, but we always went somewhere at the very end of July, after we children had broken up from school and before the action kicked off. Heavy land farms in Essex tended not to do much combining before August fifty (and more) years ago. We always went to the coast, somewhere in the UK, so we could get home if anything happened early, as was the case in 1976, the year of the drought, when cereal crops were prematurely ripe. That year, Father and I reduced our break with the others from fourteen days to two, but had a trip together later.
My parents were not holiday obsessives but they knew that a break was needed for ‘battery recharging’ purposes. We all approach holidays in different ways. Some colleagues never look at their phone, email or even the news while they are off, while others of us keep an eye on things because it is far less stressful to ‘know what we are coming back to’. The old saying goes that, ‘a change is as good as a rest’, and it works for me. Just to be in a different environment is so energising that it really doesn’t matter what else is going on, I always come back the better for being away.
In this, as in so many things, we all have different mechanisms for refreshment and renewal, just as we all have different ways of refreshing ourselves spiritually. More about that next week.
If you are not able to have any sort of holiday I so hope this has not merely rubbed salt in a wound; and I am sorry if it has done so. For everyone else, whether holidaying at home, close by or far away, remember to do what works for you and not what everyone else does; that way comes proper relaxation.
A prayer
Loving God, the catalogue of blessings we receive from you goes on growing. Help us to enjoy the times we have as best we can, and to make the most of every moment. Thank you for opportunities for relaxation and recharging, and help us continually to be healed of the damage that can be done by busy lives. Thank you for everything, but above all, for knowing you, and that you are with us at home and away. Amen.