Sundays

OK, so it's actually Monday, but after only recently surviving another Sunday, the topic is fresh in my mind.

I used to love Sundays when I was a kid. I got to stay in bed a bit longer (no school, yay! ), had the Sunday roast to look forward to, and the day spent pleasantly watching my favorite TV shows, reading, or catching up with my friends. Of course, I saw my friends every day of the week, but that was different, we had to work our socializing around our lessons then (not that we let that stop us mind you, in fact I remember school as being 90% fun and 10% learning, but that's another story).

When I reached adulthood and started working, I still loved Sundays. It was the day when I didn't have to get up for work, my mum still cooked a gorgeous big lunch, and I was able to catch up on all that lovely socializing (who's counting the Friday and Saturday nights out on the town - they were for drinking and dancing, not chatting, right?)

Now I've reached mature adulthood (that's the adulthood that comes after the official coming of age thingy, which quite frankly isn't adulthood at all), and Sundays have become the worst day of the week. I still get to have a lie-in, but when your kids are screaming at each other at decibel ten on the noise-a-mometer, trying to sleep is rather pointless. There's still that yummy Sunday roast to look forward to, only to get it I have to slave away in the steam-filled box of a kitchen for a couple of hours first. And socializing? You can forget it. The only real socializing I get on a Sunday is yelling at my kids for the nth time about arguing with each other, and asking my cat to please get off the kitchen counter because "I have to prepare food on there, dammit!"

As much I hate the weekday morning rush of getting the kids ready for school, I'd rather that hour and a half of stress than the full day of chaos that Sunday usually brings.

I'm not the best cook in the world, but I like to think I do a pretty mean roast - for the most part. When I first moved out from my parents' house, I couldn't boil an egg. Seriously. Luckily for me, my then hubby-to-be had trained as a chef, so he was pretty nifty in the kitchen. He taught me the basics, and for the last thirteen years or so I've taken over the cooking duties. That's thirteen years of experience cooking the Sunday roast. You'd think that I would have it down to a tee by now, but I still manage to overcook the potatoes so that instead of offering 'mashed' or 'boiled' as a choice, you get 'mashed' whether you like it or not. Then there's the sprouts. There's a lot of debate about sprouts - some people love them soft and squidgy, others like them hard (I really need to do that innuendo blog pretty soon), while others like them somewhere in between. Me, I'm not fussy, but hubby likes them soft. I usually test one to see if it's soft enough, but what do you know, I usually manage to pick out the only soft sprout in the pan, and I have to endure the puppy-dog hurt in the hubby's eyes as he almost breaks a tooth. And timing? Don't even go there. I have never managed to cook everything so that it's all ready at the same time. Thank heavens for microwaves.

Aside from the sweat-inducing heat from the kitchen, there are all the other things that have to be done too, particularly during school weeks. The younger child needs to read her book (thankfully she likes to read, so this isn't stressful as such, merely time consuming), the elder child needs to finish his homework (force ten on the Gale of Stress-o-meter), clothes need to be washed, dried (poxy weather + lack of washing line = tumble dryer going, adding to the already tropical heat in the kitchen) and ironed (steam from iron making me almost blind in the process).

Two hours later than planned, I get to tuck into my lovely roast, only by now I've got indigestion and don't enjoy it as much as I should. Not that it matters - I'd have gotten indigestion anyway - because as soon as I've finished eating I realize that it's time for the kids to be bathed, and the kitchen also requires a good dunking. Before I have time to blink, the kids are in bed, my eyes are drooping, and it's far too late to phone my friend (which I've been meaning to do for weeks, but I keep forgetting).

Ah well, maybe next Sunday.