This bonus bank holiday is worrying me. We’re not used to this many days off – will we cope? Using Christmas as a precedent, I predict fights in shop queues, a spike in divorce requests, dangerous swims in our sewagey seas and A&Es rammed with sporting and DIY casualties. I don’t know if it’s a Protestant work ethic thing, but British bank holidays feel terribly frenetic. We shouldn’t be overdoing it like that at the moment – we don’t have the resources. The country has all the structural and emotional integrity of a coronation quiche left out in the rain.
We need to chill, radically. Why not take inspiration from places such as my previous homes, France and Belgium, where this month is a blur of bank holidays? The first day of May is sacrosanct: on my first ever French one, my husband explained to me reverently it was the only day McDonald’s closed. France also takes Armistice Day on 8 May off and then Ascension falls on a mystery Thursday (Jesus apparently returned to heaven on a Thursday, FYI). The real miracle of that one is you can do the “pont” (bridge) – and not bother to go back to work on the Friday. Pentecost Monday is another holiday, celebrating the arrival of the Holy Spirit (yes, even in France where church and state were legally separated in 1905). When I worked in Belgium, corporate life was additionally complicated – enhanced! – by Schuman or Europe Day, celebrating the declaration that led to the formation of the EU on 9 May. It was never clear which of the European institutions might or might not be working (“not” was usually a better bet).
There’s a joyful anarchy to a month when no one knows what day it is or whether they’re supposed to be working – Christmas levels of confusion, but warm enough to escape your family. May is a mood and the mood is a vague shrug while puffing out your cheeks to make a noncommittal noise. You wanted the Q3 presentation by COB Friday? Bof. Work becomes a sideshow to the real business of living, and surely we need more of that?
A reminder, if required: Britain’s productivity levels are lower than France’s per hour worked, so you can go all-in on a European-style May without worrying about the impact on your key performance indicators.
This change will, however, require some psychological adjustment. Some pointers: first, don’t treat this spare time as an opportunity to “get ahead” with anything, from your laundry to your five-year plan; that misses the point entirely. Wipe all thoughts of DIY from your mind. No one wants to listen to you sanding the spare room, and why should the B&Q staff miss out on doing nothing? Their corporate overlords might insist they open, but you can do them the courtesy of not making them ring up your 10mm flexi-hose and find you a packet of M5 bolts.
If you find that difficult, treat eating and drinking as your bank holiday job. Implement Yuletide levels of strategic planning and programme your phone to make national emergency alert style noises to warn you when the shops are shutting or it’s time for an aperitif (always). Alternatively, find a cafe terrace and sit on it: May bank holidays mark the official start of terrace time. You may have been huddling on Pret’s flimsy outside chairs, vaping, as a pigeon covets your hummus and chipotle wrap, without interruption since February, but for delicate continentals, outside eating and drinking is strictly seasonal. Arrange your chairs side by side so your whole party is staring at passersby in a vaguely censorious fashion and accessorise with sunglasses or a scarf, probably both. My nearest terrace is a Costa overlooking the shell of our sadly defunct John Lewis – but with shades on, it could be Boulevard Saint-Germain, sort of.
If none of that hits the spot and you are itching for activity, implement that other time-honoured European May tradition: an absolutely massive, 1968-style protest. Goodness knows, we have good reason.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
