The weekend in Islamic countries is Friday and Saturday, so today while those of you back in the UK are lazing in bed reading the Sunday newspapers, I have started the first day of the week.

Friday is the equivalent of a Christian Sunday in the West. Friday prayers are the main service of the week usually accompanied by a sermon. The roads are quiet and little happens. Although supermarkets open at 8am on a Friday morning, they have to close between 11am and 1.30pm, before re-opening for the remainder of the day. On Saturday it is business as usual.

Shifting the working week back one day has been easy. The first day in my Outlook diary is Sunday. I still get two days off, but it has made the week appear to go quickly. Of course, I still have to work for 5 days, but it is easy to overlook that Sunday is a working day. The model in my head is still that Friday is the end of the week, so by the time I get to Thursday I am almost always surprised that I don’t have to work the following day.