F is for FRIDAY

It might just be my favourite day of the week, though probably for all the wrong reasons, but there is a certain carefree spirit that tends to invade my consciousness on the last day of the working week, that no amount of coaxing will remove. I think actually it plants itself sometime on Thursday afternoon at about three o'clock and refuses to budge until I'm going down Friday's hill so fast that I don't realise Monday's truck is coming straight towards me and we're going to collide with one almighty thump in a smash where I am clearly going to come off worst. For many though, Friday has become the new Saturday, with lots of workers now choosing to finish early or not even work at all on that day so essentially their weekend must start on Thursday and of course preparation for that must begin somewhere on Wednesday night! I digress.

At home, Friday was always a fairly straightforward day with dad off to Armagh and the local cattle market and then every second week when it was finished or when there were no more animals that he fancied buying, it was off for the fortnightly cattle sale in Keady, just a few miles further south. In either case, the car always pulled into the yard without a sound, such was his love of freewheeling the last hundred yards down to home, some time around four o'clock and he would come into the house with a nice roast of meat wrapped in brown paper that was tied with white cord and a bundle of papers that included the Weekly News, Ulster Gazette and a comic each for me and big sister. The Weekly News of Scottish origin, I think, but it was unique among newspapers for it never carried news that you could find in any other paper, with all the items being either obscure or of Scottish origin, not that there is any connection between the two, you understand. (Since our school secretary is Scottish, so I don't wish to offend, though she does know some rather obscure things, so maybe she reads it too). Anyway, the bit I liked best was always the joke page and also the sports section where you could see who would be the opposition for your footie team that Saturday. This of course was in the days before teletext and all manner of publications that kept you better informed. After tea, it was off to Christian Endeavour at church for an hour or so, maybe fit in any homework that needed to be completed for Monday and catch the late film before the whole sheebang closed down for the night.

At college, Friday was the day for going home and agian that old carefree mentality was well in place long before the last lecture or practical session was completed. Indeed, I remember well having to endure a dogfish dissection for something like six weeks, every Friday afternoon, with each session exploring a different area of the dreadful creature's anatomy, but the drawback was that it was the same dogfish every week, so by the fourth week, despite the preservatives, that tended to not only remove your sense of smell but also your nostrils and reason to live, there was a clearly developing, unacceptable odour emanating from what remained inside after I had completed another hoking session with a sharp scalpel. So an early afternoon train journey was much more appealing than three hours peering into an empty and offended dogfish and a late evening, packed train load of passengers staring suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes at the strange smelling person in the dufflecoat who looked like he had just been handling a dead body, which of course I was.

Friday was also the day when you started preparing for the big game on Saturday, so it was usually early to bed, a good sleep with the boots well cleaned and the kit ready for action. Yet there were many Friday nights when things weren't so routine and often I found myself crawling into bed in the early hours after a band engagement and knowing that from somewhere I would have to muster the energy for a couple of hours the next day.

These days at school, Friday is Ministers' day when a collared gentleman comes to speak to the children in Assembly which is probably ideal preparation for them before their Friday test and the day ends with an hour of Art and a chance to chat about anything but Maths and English. And then there's Black Friday, that commemorates different happenings occurring on that day of the week, or in our province, Bloody Friday, when over twenty terrorist bombs exploded with loss of life and injuries druing the Troubles, Friday the thirteenth with all its superstitions and even Man Friday who helped Robinson Crusoe survive.

But most of all there's Good Friday, the day when we remember the death of Jesus on a cross as He made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. It's a day of sadness and gloom but only temporarily as His resurrection once and for all triumphed over the power of death and satan. And as we once again approach that very special Friday, we remember, as Paul told the church at Corinth, 'The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.' And that's the only message hat I leave with you this Friday.