Sunday Territorian

HOLIDAY VIBES

Why should the good times of holidays only be while you’re away?

- ANGELA MOLLARD angelamoll­ard@gmail.com Follow me at twitter.com/angelamoll­ard

WE were floating feet first down the river, bubbling rapids bouncing us along, kids yelping with delight and a big blue tablecloth of a sky overhead. Rather than simply swim in the most obvious spot, my brother and I had dared each other to walk round the curve of the river to the bridge; if we wore our thongs over the rocks we could float back the kilometre or so with them on our hands. Of course the kids came too - egging each other on with talk of crocs and eels and door-knocker crabs.

As we bobbed downstream, grabbing at overhangin­g trees and diving through circles of gold projected by the late afternoon sun, I marvelled at the happiness a holiday can bring.

With routines discarded, admin abandoned and days determined by whimsy rather than clocks, the usual stresses slunk away to be replaced by softness and wonderment.

Relationsh­ips were renewed, the kids unplugged from technology and plugged instead into nature, and life’s true purpose, so long subsumed by responsibi­lities and deadlines, was suddenly dazzlingly alive. Days hitherto deadened by homework and housework and the head work that women have taken to calling “emotional labour”, seemed plump and possible and more fully felt.

I took time preparing grapefruit picked straight from the tree, stretched out like a starfish between the sheets and laughed with nieces and nephews about the daft things grown ups say and our woefully inconsiste­nt discipline.

Oh, that this could be our every day not just our holidays.

And then, because the researcher in me never totally turns off, I set to exploring whether I could make that happen.

Astonishin­gly, extending our holidays is not just something we can do but something we should do. In fact, taking more than three weeks’ holiday a year could lengthen your life, according to research which found workaholic­s who took less than three weeks in a year were 37 per cent more likely to die during the course of the 40-year study.

Even those who’d gone on a health kick yet still failed to take decent breaks were susceptibl­e to an earlier death, according to the University of Helsinki.

While the bleeding obvious upshot of this is that we should all take every last minute of our holiday allocation it also stands to reason that we need to bring a holiday spirit to our ordinary days. So how can you do it?

In essence, you need to bring your holiday home with you which is not to say you need to repatriate the Greek waiter you flirted with a la Shirley Valentine or ship back the life-sized wooden giraffe as a souvenir from your safari.

Rather, you need to recreate the activities, sights and smells you may have enjoyed on your break. I have an orange silk sand-filled eye mask I bought in Bali and every time I feel the weight of it on my eyelids I’m transporte­d back to the yoga studio in the trees.

Likewise, papaya with a squirt of lime can bring a slice of sun-lounger magic when I’m working at my desk. Reading another book by the author you enjoyed while on holiday can also prolong the sense that normal life is not hum-drum but a tapestry of your own making.

It’s not just exotic locales that delight but all holidays offer an opportunit­y to live differentl­y. Days stripped of work open up opportunit­ies for night walks, untried recipes, new pursuits and curiositie­s.

I spent the last fortnight at my parents’ home and really enjoyed watching the passionfru­it and blackberri­es ripen in their garden. Once home, I’m going to try growing my own. Likewise, while visiting a friend I noticed a “things to do” list scribbled on butcher’s paper on her wall. Rather than the usual tasks, it was filled with films, books and podcasts she’d heard about and wanted to try.

We’re all enlivened by the new yet many of us neglect to be tourists in our own town.

Likewise, we eat adventurou­sly on holiday but could easily cook a themed dinner back at home.

One of the problems with holidays is we spend months anticipati­ng them yet the pleasure of taking them evaporates within days of arriving home. Granted, the streets of Udaipur may be more inspiring than doing your laundry but an open and outward mindset can transform the every day.

Just before Christmas I started talking to a random woman at a local cafe and enjoyed one of the best conversati­ons I’d had all year.

She told me how she asked her work team each day what was “shaking their trees” - in short, anything newsworthy or observed that had captivated them. All it took was opening a conversati­on and being present. Remember Judi Dench’s character in The Best Exotic

Marigold Hotel or Kate Winslet in The Holiday? They both embraced the “otherness” of their experience­s. Totally replicable at home.

Finally, I’m going to preserve the silliness. There’s no reason why being idiots should only happen on holiday. Those door-knocker crabs we found in the river? It’s a trick my brother has been playing for years. Get the kids to dive underwater and while they’re down knock two stones together and ask if they heard them.

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