Time was when the weekend spelled a brief period of repose after the scramble and toil of the working week; a bit of a lie-in, perhaps a Sunday morning church service, a stroll through the countryside and then a couple of pints of warm ale and a roast dinner. Alas no more. Chances are, you're currently recovering from a "workend" - two days stuffed to the gills with chores, drudgery and gloom.

These findings come courtesy of a study by Dulux Paint, which has found that many of us regard Saturday and Sunday as nothing more than an extension of the working week, with 6 million Britons putting in a six-hour day at the weekend, using that time to deal with cleaning, laundry, bills, DIY and grocery shopping. Not altogether surprisingly, the survey also found that 62% of us would welcome more time at weekends to relax.

Is this a new phenomenon? Or was it ever thus? Certainly some of this is due to cultural shifts: household cleaning, for example, is no longer regarded as a daily responsibility, so it is hardly surprising that we store it all up for the weekend. Added to this is the fact that we now have more women in the workplace, rather than Cinderella-ed away at home, and we have longer working hours and increased commuting times too. Plus we quite feasibly spend more of our relaxation time midweek, splodged in front of the television with a glass of wine when previous generations might have been getting on with the ironing.

So yes, we probably do spend more of our weekends tackling the mountain of washing up and descaling the kettle, but really, one has to wonder, what business is it of a paint manufacturer? Is it hoping to flog some magnolia eggshell off the back of this research? Because frankly we don't need to add "redecorating" to our long list of weekend chores.