The quietest, and perhaps laziest, two days of the year have to be the feast of Santa Marija, celebrated yesterday, and Good Friday.

There is one big difference between the two days however – while Good Friday, celebrated in March or April, is quiet for the simple reason that most Catholics mark the Death of Our Lord and the only activities are the processions held in various villages, Santa Marija is a day most people spend on the beach, lazing about and trying to cool off in the best way possible.

Santa Marija is also a time when most people take their summer holidays. All throughout the past week, most workers began to take their summer break and companies literally shut down. Many are glad of the break, many others take a forced holiday because it is simply not viable to have employees on duty when there is no work to be done or had.

Of course, many Maltese would have gone to Gozo for a week, or even a bit longer, giving time for batteries to recharge while at the same time providing excellent business for Gozo Channel and all the restaurants, flats and farmhouse owners, shops, beach kiosks and pretty much each and every sector of business on the sister island.

Many politicians and other high ranking private sector officials will also take the opportunity to rest, as it might be the only opportunity they get all year to have some down time.

Of course, everything will more or less slow down and it will not really pick up until mid-September when summer bows out to be replaced by autumn, and preparations for school begin. There is always a general mood of apathy among those who still work – simply because the pace of life slows down so much and there is so little going on.

As mentioned already, business is brisk in Gozo and will hand a good boost to the economy, and the same can be said for Malta, as most bars, restaurants and beaches yesterday were full of people, eating and drinking their hearts out. Few cooked a meal at home yesterday.

On the political front, everything grinds to a standstill and the country entered its “silly season”.

Each year, some grand issue comes to a head in the run up to August and then it’s almost as if everyone says to themselves “forget about it, we’ll resume after these two weeks”.

This year, however, one issue has remained on the burner and that is the shipyards privatisation. It will remain on the forefront for the next two weeks as a buyer needs to be found before mid-September. In the meantime, we can expect shots to be traded between the General Workers’ Union, Castille and the Finance Ministry.

But as with everything else, before everyone even knows it, the weather will eventually cool down and things will be back in full swing. Once parliament resumes and schools re-open, the whole country seems to hit cruising speed and that is the signal for life to get back to normal.

There are other issues to look forward to. The MLP leader has announced his intentions to call an extraordinary conference before the year is out to overhaul the party statute and that will be another issue that will dominate.

Of course, rent and local council reform will also be implemented once the consultation periods are over and there is also the divorce hot potato to deal with – it’s going to be an interesting second half of the year.