ESL Blogs

Hello everyone. I'm back to introduce you a curious English expression called "Bank Holidays".

Probably, the name will make you relate to some kind of holidays. And yes, it is! Mini-holidays, to tell the truth.

The expression refers to the public or national holidays in the UK, when banks close and financial transactions come to a halt. Most of workers get  days off, because offices don't work on these days.

Most of "bank holidays" in the UK are on Mondays, what turns normal weekends into long weekends, as the British people usually say.

The reason for Bank Holidays occur just on Mondays, is that the Queen in an official letter sent to the UK government communicates all the holidays for the coming year, making some foreseeable holidays to be moved so that they don't be on Saturdays or Sundays, for example.

You may want to know what people in Britain do during this period. So, people usually talk about the possibilities of weather. A cold, dark and rainy weather is  the main guess. The British media tent to feature the size of traffic jams on the motorways between the British Isles, since most of people go visiting their families on holidays.

Even though the catastrophic possibility of a chaotic traffic on the streets, shops in the biggest centres of the UK are staying opened that period increasingly more, causing people to take advantage of this free time to make some domestic activities like fixing something or painting a bedroom .

The Bank holidays tradition started in the nineteenth century after the approval of the Act 1871 and consists in  Saint's days and religious ones. Currently,England has eight official Bank Holidays.

If you want to know more about the  Bank holidays dates in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland consult the lists on www.gov.uk and about the difference from public holidays take a look here.

Have a nice day, afternoon or night and see you on my next blogpost!