Clocking off

I was scrolling through LinkedIn yesterday when I saw a post by Arianna Huffington that said: “Studies show that Americans leave around a third of their vacation days unused.”

What???

She’s talking about a country where most people only get two weeks annual leave. And they don’t take it???

Are they insane?

In the good old days of journalism, I got six weeks and three days of paid annual leave each year, so it was easy to accrue.

These days I get zero hours of paid annual leave because I am a contractor.

I would like to get 365 days of annual leave, but I live in the real world, so I’m just hoping for something a little more substantial than zero as a compromise.

And I will make the most of every single day of annual leave that I am given.

Oh, the places I’ll go!

Our feet got so itchy when we were in Adelaide the other weekend. We were so close to the Kangaroo Island ferry, but it was all booked out for day trippers.

We’re also in a What’s App group with our fellow passengers from the Reef Prince – the boat we sailed on in the Kimberley last year. It’s the one year anniversary of the trip and everyone is feeling very starry eyed about how wonderful it was.

This afternoon, DD hops on a plane without me. He’s off to a conference in Chicago. It’s been a long time between conferences for DD – this will be his first international business trip post-COVID.

Brave new world! I will miss him. He’s going for less than a week, just to put a toe into international waters.

I raced up to his place with a bowl of gumbo last night to get his tastebuds in the American groove. And to give him 50 million hugs goodbye.

I can’t wait to hear about his adventures. Bon voyage DD!

PS The song below isn’t about him, it’s about me wanting to run away! Love a bit of Jimmy Somerville warbling.

Song of the day: Bronski Beat “Smalltown boy”