There's been far too much doom and gloom on this blog of late; time to rectify that.

I started this blog by writing about the Labour Day public holiday and the history of its predecessor, the Eight Hour Day.

In Australia we're about to head in to one of my favourite public holidays, the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. We're a week and a half into Winter and the damp air is settling into my bones, and filling my chest and sinus with fluid. Outdoor activities are limited, and we cheer when the sun makes a brief appearance in the middle of the day. It's a time for jackets and jumpers, hot drinks, stodgy food and snuggling. And time for heaters and slippers, hats and gloves, and marathon movie sessions.

The Queen’s Birthday long weekend marks the start of the ski season in the southern states, another reminder that months of bitter cold await us before the warm Spring air touches our skin again.

I, and many others I suspect, treasure this long weekend because it is our last public holiday for five months. The thought of going so long without a paid day off, usually attached to a weekend, is so unappealing that I want every minute of this long weekend to be 120 seconds long. I want to wring every drop of downtime out of it, to sustain me over the coming long, dark winter days. I want to wrap myself in blankets, read books, watch DVDs, eat hot chips and cuddle the dogs. Most importantly, I want more than anything else to sleep. To not be woken by an alarm, to not wake up when it’s still dark, to wake up when my body decides it’s ready to be active (in a lazy kind of way). This will be some kind of bliss.

What ever you decide to do over this long weekend, enjoy it. It’s a long while until the next one rolls around.

At some point over the weekend, I highly recommend you take a look at this article by Michael Leunig, drawing parallels between Winter and ageing. It's a beautifully written piece, titled The Warm Heart in Winter http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-warm-heart-in-winter-20100528-wl26.html