Every Day Should Be A Holiday

Many though the number of holidays may be, not every day is a holiday and not every day is a holiday everywhere, albeit that I'm beginning to believe that, on any given day, somewhere is celebrating a holiday. Life can get very confusing here. Yesterday was Sant Sebastià. Ostensibly a Palma-only gig, it has found its way onto the list of holidays and therefore days off elsewhere on the island. Sant Antoni was on Saturday; it's a bigger thrash in some places compared with others and is a holiday in some towns and not others. Then there is the word itself - fiesta. It means both party and holiday. Some places it's a party-holiday, a fiesta-fiesta, if you like; some places it's just a party - fiesta-lite - or neither a holiday nor a party, it seems. Keeping track of all of this is virtually impossible. For example, the Saturday gone, in Pollensa, was a fiesta-fiesta, a holiday and a party for Sant Antoni and the pine-tree climbing. Yesterday was a fiesta-fiesta for Sebastian in certain municipalities, but wasn't in others; indeed it wasn't really even a fiesta-lite in others.

So, I went along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro. My intention was to post two birthday cards at the post office. Strangely, the shutters for the post office were pulled to, but the building was open. Cati, the receptionist at what doubles as the tourist office and Muro's satellite town hall office, said the post office was closed. I could see that.

"Fiesta."

"Fiesta?"

"Fiesta."

"But you're working," I point out.

"It's not a fiesta in Muro."

I look at the locked door of the post office with a growing sense of bewilderment. It is a fiesta in Can Picafort. But this isn't Can Picafort. No, but the post office is. Let's just run through all that again - the post office, which is located in Muro, is closed because, although it is in Muro, it isn't; it is in fact in Can Picafort (or Santa Margalida if you want to be pedantic). And because it isn't in Muro - as such - it is closed because today is a holiday in Can Picafort. Well, glad we've got that straightened out.

The danger, having found that the not-the-Muro-sub-post-office is shut for the day, is if then one decides to go to a different post office. As it turns out, Alcúdia, for example, would have been a safe bet; no fiesta or at least not a fiesta-fiesta. But had one gone off to Sa Pobla it would not have been. Despite Sant Antoni being such a big deal there, they take Sebastian off.

I once suggested that Mallorca should sell itself as a 365-day-a-year party-people place. Even on this relatively small island, it may indeed be possible to find somewhere that is holding a fiesta, and somewhere that is, therefore, closed for the day. Never let it be said that something as trivial as work might get in the way of a day off and a fiesta. Or in the way of bringing the postal system to a grinding halt, in whichever town it happens to be - or not.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Sebastian", Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIFk2dQcno). Today's title - single by one of the Portland, Oregon flock. Think play on the name of an artist.

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