Today is a holiday?

"Enjoy the holiday," my housemate Skyped me.

Holiday? Holiday?

Okay it's Memorial Day in the US. What is it in France or Switzerland.

Aha. Pentecôte or Whit Monday to anglophones.

Now that I no longer work in a office holidays just kind of float by. No more looking forward to three- day or even four-day weekends.

In Argelès sometimes we can tell a three-day weekend by increased tourists wandering the streets. In Geneva, if we don't leave the house the holiday can sneak by unnoticed.

When I worked for Interskill, we were given ten holidays and we could take them whenever our clients had holidays so someone with a lot of German clients might not show up when those of us with English clients did or vice versa.

And then there's Mother's Day. There was one point my daughter and I had living or loving connections with the UK, Switzerland, France, Germany and the US.

• UK Fourth Sunday in Lent
• Germany, US Second Sunday in May
• France Last Sunday in May
• Switzerland Might or might not be moved if it falls on the same day as Pentecôte.

I suggested that my daughter give her beloved mother a present on each one of the dates. She wasn't impressed. This year however, she apologized for missing Mother's Day entirely and wished me a happy one. Only it wasn't any of the ones above.

In a way I miss the anticipation of a holiday, but then again, the way we work, we can declare any day we want as a holiday...and do!