Saturday Night: Nana Night

For the longest time, Saturday night has been the night I'm most likely to spend in. It seems counter-intuitive to most people I tell, but seriously, by the time Saturday night rolls around I'm thoroughly knackered.

It would be easy but incorrect to blame this on my relatively new grown-up job with regular hours + overtime arrangement. You see, in the height of my partying days, this pattern of Saturdays on the the couch has held fairly steady (except for those weeklong benders that my body is no longer capable of sustaining).

Usually, at the moment, my week shapes up thus:

Monday: I'll be newly reminded of what the week ahead requires of me, and often spend the evening at home and cook a lot of food, stockpiling for the week ahead. There is a high probability of dvds with housemates or the gentleman caller, who may equally be called upon.
Tuesday - Thursday: There'll be busy days at work, often starting quite early. Then racing off to something or other such as a meeting, drinks with friends, dinner engagement, movie, theatre, gig, exhibition opening, festival event, dinner with family member, and the usual combinations of the above. I am rarely home of a weeknight.
Friday: Post work drinks with workmates, then out to somewhere or other. Friday is always accompanied with a big sigh of relief that I get a couple of days to wind down, to which I then apply poor judgement, liberal quantities of booze, and shouty conversations late at night in bars with people I wish I saw more of.
Saturday: The thrill of having a whole day to myself is such that I generally get quite carried away with regards to what can actually be achieved in one mere day, and set myself a frantically scheduled to-do list, which I race through with an urgency that belies the notion of a 'day to wind down'. I'll try to get up before 9am to fit in a run, get to the market or at least supermarket to stock up on food, clean things, catch up with people, and think ridiculous thoughts about getting to relax eg "from 3:15 - 3:50 I'll read in front of the heater, oooh, whilst baking a tea cake!, but first I'd better wash all the dishes from yesterday so there's some room in the kitchen." Often, I'm also a bit seedy.

It should be noted that I'm rarely able to keep to my plans. For example today I slept until 10:30am, got up, rode to the supermarket, cooked up a big hot breakfast (which took bleeding ages because our oven is so crappy), and then somehow watched an entire series of Black Books with gentleman caller. Before I knew it, it was time to meet Amanda for cake, and my list was uncommenced (except for the supermarket/hot breakfast part - two things I greatly enjoy ticking off on a weekend). However, between 5pm and 7:30pm I downloaded 6 podcasts and listened to three of them, did all the dishes, a load of washing, tidied, dusted and vacuumed my bedroom (no small task), marinated steaks for dinner, checked emails and played with the dog.

By any given Saturday evening, the prospect of costumes, parties, cold night air, the feigning/mustering of high spirits are often a bit beyond me. Especially when I know in advance that the week ahead offers not a single prospect of an evening at home. I don't even have the energy to tell you about Sunday, but it certainly involves a few hours work.

Also, I would like to pause for a moment to sing the praises of the 'nana-ry': home cooked meals; heaters; comfy couches; ug boots and elastic waist lines; hot cups of tea; wine that has already been paid for; movies; books; bed. Pass my crocheted blanket...