How do we achieve the perfect weekend? And
how do you prefer to spend a long Bank Holiday weekend? My own Bank Holiday
weekend went like this:
Come Friday evening, and I was knackered. Knackered
because of a whole week’s full-time translation work and everything that
entails: reading, thinking, typing, re-writing, revising, dealing with
enquiries, invoicing. So on Friday evening, again, I could not bring myself to
do a lot – just relax.
Saturday morning, as almost always, saw me
participating in my local parkrun
at Pomphrey Hill. No weekend to me ever feels complete without parkrun! It
provides a welcome opportunity to “run off” the stresses of the past week and
meet other local runners for a chat.
In the evening, while on my way with my
husband to the Alma
Tavern Theatre in Bristol to watch the very excellent “Beyond
the Brink” performance by Remania Productions (with yet another
out-of-this-world performance by Colin
Smith on the keys!), I picked up an email about an urgent project from a
long-standing client.
This could have seen me change my weekend plans from one minute to the next as it presented the opportunity to participate in a (tempting!) translation project from Sunday morning. I can see the point that checking emails at weekends is generally not advisable: it gives the impression to clients that you’re always there, always available and always working.
Yet, if it feels right to you to check
emails at weekends too, why not? I did reply to my client’s email, although I
did not then participate in the project. In any case, I think it is lovely to
know that there is always a lot of translation work around. And I am free to
decide when I want to work and when not, and how much work I want to take on.
As a translator who loves her job, I am also
almost always in translation mode! So on Sunday morning I seized the
opportunity to first revise a translation of patent claims on paper, which I
had already printed off a couple of days before. Then I also had a quick look
through the German translation of an (older) English post for this blog.
An afternoon such as this one – spent simply and differently from what I usually do during the week – can feel luxurious: cycling and enjoying some beautiful scenery; spending an hour or so in a stylish, eclectic eatery (as the Chapel Arts Café in Bath is currently closed, I chose Prêt-à-Manger instead); finishing my current book whilst treating myself to a few special things to eat and drink; and watching the world go by for a bit before heading back home again.
I started working again on (Bank Holiday) Monday in the afternoon.