Time and time again - no wonder it runs out

Yes the school holidays will soon be over. Or so someone behind me in the queue several days ago was saying. Whaaat, I thought, with four days and a weekend still ahead?

But there was agreement with the speaker.

Someone chimed in ‘‘yes soon and once the kids are back at school, before you know it Labour weekend is here’’.

And said another at my shoulder ‘‘get Labour weekend over and you’re looking at Christmas’’.

Well if you go one like that, Christmas is followed by New Year, school going back by Waitangi Day, Ash Wednesday, six weeks later Easter and surely then Queen’s Birthday.

Not much said about the long dark slog through to Labour Weekend but see how quickly we have polished off a precious year?

It hardly bears thinking about that all our dates are tied up with school holidays and public holidays and we are marking time as though it has little to do with us.

Nothing very new in this: the Seven Ages of Man belt through the supposedly proscribed three score and ten and loads more clocks and diaries, calendars and wall charts knock off weeks, months years faster than you can live them.

Himself inadvertently missed a rugby match this week but a good friend called to bring him up to speed.

The game goes for 80 or 90 minutes (I think ) but took more than two hours in the telling, every second relished by all concerned.

Equally, we enjoyed a lovely filmed period piece – Sydney fashion and home life circa 1959 – and for two hours were in that time and place with Ladies in Black.

Two hours. And it has taken me only a minute to tell you that. Children do wait an age for Christmas. For a five-year-old, that 12 months is one-fifth of her life, so a long time indeed.

When you reach 50 you see that wait as one-50th of your life, nothing in the scheme of things.

School terms aside, and they are a variable, our years are marked by the seasons and by the incoming of daylight saving, which adds two more dates to our calendar.

Add in family birthdays and anniversaries and there’s scarcely a week in which something should be noted if not actively celebrated – and that’s a neat way to live I think.

Once people noted Christmas by the twice-daily delivery of festive season mail.

Not now!