Sunday Sunday

Today is VAT day, the day I get to be an unpaid government tax collector. It’s not my favourite day of the quarter, as you can probably tell, but it has to be done, so I’m going to do it. 

It is also Sunday.

I generally do the VAT on a Monday, but I’m doing it today, because the dort’s off doing her Sunday rehearsals, and the husband is flying back from GamesDay US in Memphis, so I’ve got a quiet one.

I often work on Sundays, so it’s not out of the ordinary, for me, but we do have other rituals for Sundays, too.

It got me thinking. It got me thinking about what Sundays used to be like, before Sundays were like every other day of the week.

Sundays used to be special for all sorts of strange reasons.

Sundays used to be special, because the shops were shut and there was church parade, because there was no school and no work, because if my parents were going to have a row that was the day they were going to do it on, because no one hung out washing on a Sunday so the gardens also looked pretty, and no one was allowed out after Sunday tea. Sundays were special, because there was nothing on the telly except bloody Songs of Praise. Sundays were special, because that’s when you went to see your Gran, and because that’s when we ate hot sausage rolls and baked beans for tea, in the winter, for reasons beyond understanding.

Sundays used to be full of rituals. 

I’ve said it before, but it’s still true, that our lives are not like other people’s, because we work from home, together, and we set out own, very busy schedules, and it’s nice to work weekends when the phone doesn’t ring and e-mails aren’t constantly winging their way into our in-boxes. The truth is, though, that it’s nice to stop and read the Sunday papers, and it’s nice to eat a breakfast of bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, or the husband’s amazing Eggs Benedict, and I’d soon get fat if I did that every day of the week, and, besides, doing it too often would take away the ‘special’.

Sundays are still a bit like mini-Christmas days, they still have an atmosphere all their own, and I still wish the husband was home, and I still wish the dort didn’t have Sunday rehearsals, and I still wish someone was here to share the papers and eat breakfast with me.

Nevermind... I might have the VAT to face, today, but there’s also a plate of cupcakes that the dort made yesterday, and the promise that she’ll be home for supper and a movie tonight, and tomorrow, the husband will return, the conquering hero. I think I’ll save the Sunday papers for him, who knows, maybe I’ll even take him out for breakfast, so that he doesn’t have to make it. 

Sunday just got very, VERY special... While I was reading this back, before posting, I got a call from my sister to tell me that she got engaged last night! HUGE CONGRATULATIONS and best love to Zoe and Stuart!