Norway is often considered the country in the world with most public holidays.... though I'm not so sure after having spent a lot of time in France, where there are plenty of chances for a time-out on a Saint's Birthday or a World War I or II Memorial Day.
But I'll give Norway one thing - May really has an abundance of public holidays - one after the other! There's Labour Day May 1st, then there's Ascension Day, which falls on the 39th day after Easter Sunday, always on a Thursday, and this year it was the 9th May. Then follows May 17th - Norway's Constitution Day (but of course sometimes this day falls before Ascension Day. Finally there's Whitsun, with one holiday - Whitsun Monday, which is on May 20th this year. BUT after Whitsun, there's nothing, no holiday, no fun, no day off, just emptiness and dreary workloads.... until Christmas Day. (Oh, I forgot about the summer holidays...).
In between all these holidays - and especially this year - there are squeezed-in days that simply beg you to take some more time off, so that you keep getting oval weekends that last for nearly a week! This takes a lot of planning! And not only that - the Saturday between the 17th May (holiday) and Whitsun Sunday - the 18th - is called Whitsun Saturday and is practically a holiday too - the shops are open for a few hours, and if you want to buy alcohol this day there's only beer to be had. And the sale of beer in the shops stops at 4 pm.
Route des vins near Thuir, France
I was reminded today of the totally diametric opposites of Norway and France when it comes to the sale of alcohol. In Norway all alcohol containing a percentage above 4.7 is sold through the state-owned regulated chain Vinmonopolet (directly translated "Wine Monopoly") open 9 am - 6 pm weekdays and 9 am - 3 pm Saturdays. And of course they have closing rules at other times - like Whitsun Saturday. A string of holidays like this week's means that you have to remember to buy your wine on May 16th before 6 pm at the latest, because you certainly won't get hold of any again until 9 am on Tuesday the 21st. People always forget about these opening hours connected to public holidays - even if they've known about them forever - so there's a lot of borrowing going on! Those who do remember the opening hours will most certainly buy too much anyway, because it's hard to calculate what you need with all the socialising going on over the holiday.
Checking my Facebook page later this afternoon I noticed I was invited to the annual event picnic in the vineyards in my French district of Roussillon at the weekend (Bring your picnic basket, you'll be served the wine for free!), and asked my husband "Do you think the French would accept going from Thursday evening to Tuesday morning without being able to buy a bottle of wine?" He answered with one word: "No."
After stocking up on wine it was time to throw myself into the crazy traffic again to look for my granddaughter Jelena's birthday present(s). Here she is - very proud of her new bike! Her birthday is not until June 13th, but she needed her gift now, because she's doing her school bicycle test right after Whitsun and has to practise over the holidays.
She quickly picked out the bike she wanted, and when I went to pay for it the girl in the shop said, "But you want a kickstand for your bike, don't you? It only costs blah-blah." Okay, a kickstand. "And you need mudguards for the wheels, of course..." Of course, mudguards. "And a lock." Yeah, yeah, lock and helmet. "And you must have a light..." "Later!" I put my foot down. "It won't get dark until September!" Honestly! The bikes they sell nowadays are only raw material! Wasn't most of this stuff included before?
Constitution Day May 17th two years ago - wearing national dresses - some of us anyway
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