All in a Day's Work

Last weekend I left my reader with the news of my impending departure for Ireland - thanks to the repeating genie - for the second time in six days.  I'm pleased to say that, like the previous one, that trip went well too.  Although I had no secondary agenda this time, the gap between ferry sailings and the proximity of my destination to Dublin meant that I had a few extra hours to practise my tourism skills.


Glendalough

I got my feet wet trying to get a close-up view of the monastic buildings at Glendalough, and treated the camera to similar conditions in the mist and/or drizzle on the Wicklow Hills, as I passed some excellent viewpoints on my way to finding an elusive monument.

Wicklow Hills

The excitement paled somewhat as the dampness grew, and I thought that perhaps a little retail therapy might have a restorative effect on my spirits.  Serious shopping, I found, is a little difficult in rural Ireland - no disrespect to the resourceful Irish, of course!  Since it was the next stage on my planned mini-tour in any case, I headed for Wicklow town, thinking there might be somewhere there that I could get some new socks and shoes.  By the time I got there, the feet had grown accustomed to their new circumstances, and I was more concerned for the shopkeepers than for myself when I discovered that not one but two gents' outfitters had closed within fifty yards of each other on the high street.  To my joy, however, I did find a charity shop with a sale on!  I lashed out on a quite decent pair of shoes at half-price - €3 instead of €6!

Apart from the minor excitement of finding a pay-and-display on-street parking area for which the payment machine was not only on the opposite side of the road but some eight feet higher up a flight of stone steps, there seems little to report of my hour or so in Wicklow - I got the feeling that the recession had squeezed the life out of what had been a thriving little port.  The deserted quayside, pictured as I departed, seemed to say it all.

Wicklow - Quayside

The afternoon ferry sailing brought me to Holyhead in daylight, and I made a good start on my homeward journey before tiredness overtook me.  As I worked my way through the resulting admin on Tuesday morning, and realised how young the week still was, a thought occurred to me that was really the reason for framing this blog entry now instead of waiting until the weekend as usual. 

This was only the second time in my working life - unless memory fails me - that I had actually gone to work on a Sunday.  Now, I know, that for some whose work involves regular Sunday working that claim may seem almost obscene, but I believe it to be true and it brings into focus the whole business of seven-day-a-week trading, and people's attitudes to it.  I have to say that I don't have any religious objection to Sunday trading per se, so long as those involved receive adequate payment and rest days without struggle.  My own reticence to indulge thus is based solely on my personal preference to ring bells and attend services on Sunday mornings; I have no qualms about going from church to a supermarket, since one of my friends works on the tills at one of the biggest, and I know she gets adequate time off on other days.  On the odd occasion I have left my cosy flat on a Sunday afternoon to collect goods for delivery on the following morning, and in a way I suppose my six-hour journey this Sunday evening differed little from this.

However, my mind drifted back many years to that other day of Sunday work.  I was in post as an accountant in a manufacturing company.  The year-end stocktaking was always a critical time - more so before the advent of complex computerised stock-control systems.  On this occasion greater importance than ever had been placed on the need for both completeness and accuracy.  Plans were made, detailed instructions issued, and the exercise began promptly at the end of production on the Friday evening.  It continued during Friday's night shift, throughout Saturday, and with some work still to be done, we called a halt at 4.30pm, with a select band (including me) being detailed to re-appear at 9.0 on Sunday morning to complete the task.  After finishing about 1.0pm on Sunday, I remember well the feeling of over-familiarity with the workplace as I turned up for work at 8.30 the next morning to start a new week.  By about Thursday it almost seemed that the world consisted of nowhere else but the office and the works.  Ever since, I have made sure that - however much I might do on Saturdays - that Sunday break was sacrosanct.  Even a curtailed weekend satisfies the need to separate one week's work from the next.

As an afterthought, I never did find that monument I was chasing, so here are a couple of shots of one I found in the middle of Wicklow.  The shot of the base came out much better than I'd hoped, and explains it all.