I love Friday in Tel Aviv. It's the holy day of the secular Jewish calendar, with its own set of rituals that go by the Hebrew acronym SEX (SKS in Hebrew): sponga (cleaning the house); kniyot (grocery shopping for the weekend); stalbet (relaxing and hanging out). I usually skip the sponga part and get right to the kniyot and stalbet.

After my morning yoga class I walk up Basel street to Dizengoff, and inevitably run into a guy who walks around selling flowers for the sabbath; I purchase a bunch, and then continue on to pick up some groceries. If I'm in the mood to fight the crowds, then I head for the Carmel Market; if I'm in a mellow post-yoga haze, I just walk home - via Dizengoff and Ben Zion Boulevard - and stop by my local grocery store to pick up a few essentials. My "local" is owned by Chen and Yaniv, who are best friends from childhood. They are gorgeous and sweet: they allow me to run a tab and always keep copies of my favourite newspapers set aside - lest they be sold out by the time I wander over.

Today when I arrived Chen was sitting outside the grocery store, chair tilted back against the wall and face turned skyward to catch the warm winter sun, while Yaniv worked the cash register inside. It was such a spectacularly beautiful day.

The usual gang was hanging out at my corner cafe, Ginzburg. Greetings consisted of hugs and kisses on each cheek. I don't need to tell Ronen, the Yemenite bartender with the rasta locks who works nights as a club DJ, how to make my coffee. It's the only one I drink all week, because coffee does bad, bad things to me. Within minutes I am sitting with my double machiatto, exchanging gossip and newspaper sections with my friends. I see most of them all week, but there's something about the relaxed atmosphere on Fridays that contributes to a lot of levity. Sometimes we test each other with the "brain strain" questions in the weekend supplement of Haaretz. (sample question: "Whose stained-glass windows adorn the Metz cathedral in Germany?")

Ginzburg has a certificate of kashrut, which is rare in Tel Aviv. It means the cafe has to close just before the sabbath. We like to sit at the tables outside and wait for 30 minutes before sunset, when the Orthodox woman who lives across the street positions herself on her balcony - Fillipina maid standing at attention nearby - to verify that the cafe is indeed preparing to close. Sometimes we wave at the elderly woman, but she just stares back at us, stoney-faced and disapproving of our obvious lack of religious observance. We are not at home preparing to greet the sabbath!

Now it's evening, and soon I'll go meet another friend at yet another cafe - because she has a rare two-hour window of freedom while her children are at a matinee film and her husband is at The Tel Aviv University health club taking a swim.

Friday night dinner is the meal of the week, the time when extended families get together. Sometimes singletons throw dinner parties; and sometimes I take advantage of standing invitations to eat at the home of various married-plus-children friends. But tonight it's dinner with a friend at Pastis, a French-Mediterranean restaurant on Rothschild Boulevard, followed by a movie at the Cinematheque.

No big nights out on Fridays: that's for teenagers. ;)

Shabbat shalom.