Sunday best

     How will you be spending your Sunday? Is it a day of rest, reflection, recreation, or just an extension to the working week?

     Aside from the matter of religious observance, what are your rituals - if any - for making Sunday a special day? Do lie-ins feature, traditional lunches, an afternoon walk, a visit to a gallery or museum?

     I'm conscious of the fact that Sunday is for me much as any other day and I ought to change that. I have a list of jobs to do, beginning with three book reviews to write, and moving on to the usual never-ending household chores. Having picked these flowers a few minutes ago I'm aware that the garden is sorely in need of attention - impenetrability wasn't a feature we were consciously including in our small city patch.

 

     Modern life means boundaries are blurred: people work at or from home, our culture is a twenty-four hour, seven day bonanza of opportunity and access to all manner of activities, informality rules and the structure of a 'timetabled' day has gone, certainly at weekends. All of this seems to add up to an erosion of the separate-ness or specialness of at least this one day.

     If you have a 'Sunday best' or a 'best Sunday', please tell us what it is.

Comments

[Peter the flautist]

The cat family always have freshly baked croissant/pain chocolat from the patisserie in the next street for breakfast just after 08:00. Dark Puss gets to stay in bed until nearly 08:00 too. Quite often a walk to Primrose Hill/Regents Park/Hampstead Heath will follow (before the sluggards get out of their beds). Dark Puss has his 1 hour of flute practice to do and quite often work related activities, the latter of course detracting from the special nature of the day. The cat family try very hard NOT to use the shops on a Sunday if at all possible.

A couple of Sundays ago we did do something special and that was to hear the fabulous pianist Lise de la Salle at a "Coffee Concert" at the Wigmore - now that realy did make for a "Best Sunday".

[Lisa W]

We try to keep Sundays slower paced and more family centred. That involves trying to avoid shopping and "serious" housework. Listening to the radio and preparing Sunday brunch is often part of the routine. CBC Radio airs the Vinyl Cafe show which consists of music and humorous stories by Stuart MacLean about a fictitious record store owner and his family. (Many of those stories have been compiled in different volumes and make a nice light read.) I also have an indulgence that I allow myself. I don't watch a lot of television, but CBC airs 5 consecutive episodes of Coronation Street on Sunday mornings. For years I have recorded this show so I can watch it at my leisure either in installments or in it's entirety, usually while ironing or, now, doing a little knitting. Not the highbrow entertainment of galleries or museums, but it does give me a chuckle. Ah, Sundays.

[Peg]

Sunday - leisure; sleep in until 6:00, later in winter; read the paper with tea mug in hand; start the laundry; listen to Stuart McLean; knit, watch some TV and stoke the fires for another week of whatever!
When my family, DS and DD, lived here, we always had Sunday dinner together, followed by board games! I miss that activity.
Sunday best as a child meant getting dressed up for Sunday School in your best dress, coat, hat and purse in summer and muff in winter! My Mom made me a muff from an old fur coat and even put in a zipper for a little 'purse' to store my collection money!
My Mom was not even allowed to read on a Sunday - I am glad that she never inflicted that 'curse' on her children!
Sunday is that lovely 'pause' in our lives!
I, too, was arranging flowers and using Alchimella Mollis as filler! I also use Feverfew as a filler and today it had some chive flowers in the arrangement!

[Rebecca]

I have written about my Sundays before, my absolute favourite day of the week, late breakfast of bacon sandwiches or perhaps a full Ulster fry. A good long tramp across the fields with dogs and children and always a Roast linner (that's a cross between lunch and dinner, takes place around 3.30pm, don't you know!) We really never go to the shops on a Sunday and on the rare occasions when we go out for lunch we never order the Roast because it is simply never quite as good as at home, no seconds you see! The hours in between eating and walking pass often at the kitchen table in bad weather, newspapers and sticking and gluing etc. and good weather sees us all outside. I ignore the weeds on a Sunday and cleaning never takes up too much of my time anyway...

[Donna]

Sundays in our household are very casual. Everyone seems to head off in their own direction and do what they will, until noon that is. At noon we all gather, at the kitchen table in the colder weather, and in summer on the back porch,turn on the radio, and listen to Stuart McLean. After his show ends, we have a nice meal, and talk, and laugh and generally catch up with one another. I can only imagine how it must have been years ago when families gathered round their radios of an evening. It must have been a wonderful time for them, because it is certainly my favourite time of the whole week.

[Harriet]

I try really hard not to work on Sundays. I do shop, though, as its an excuse to buy the Sunday papers which I can then spend a long lazy time reading. I blog, of course. Sometimes lunch with a friend or go for a walk in the countryside. The main thing is to take the pressure off and just enjoy.

[Kim]

We definitely all have an evening meal together on Sunday, something that's impossible to do during the week, good to have children and adults in one place. Time in the garden with the children is on our wish list but not always achievable!
Kim x

[a simple yarn]

Simply put, Sunday is a day of rest and reflection for our family. Well, okay, the kids don't quite appreciate that yet, but hopefully modeling it for them will be a great reminder in later years. And it's not followed in a legalistic manner, but rather an underlying foundational value of the family.

It's a desire to set apart one day out of seven to recharge our physical reserves, as post-modern life is certainly lived at a hectic pace. It is likewise a desire to set apart one day out of seven to recharge our spiritual/emotional batteries by conversation, contemplation and reflection.

What that means practically is that we minimise the media we use. I turn off my mobile. Cooking and washing dishes are at a minimum. But it may mean a family walk or a trip to the beach. No rush. Light and easy.

Right, that sounds sort of pretentious and preachy perhaps, but I have to say that after having dones this for a few years, I've seen a marked change in being better prepared for Monday.

And by the way, love the tomato puff...looks yummy!

[rosie]

I love Sundays. One of the joys of living without a car is that we have to take things easier, as there's no bus into central Cambridge until 9.45am. Husband likes to "adventure in churches" (to quote the aponymous heroine of Lolly Willowes, by Sylvia Townsend Warner) and I amble round the farmers' market, or stroll along the backs or over the fens, or nab brucnch, or... At noon I start work, and Sunday's customers are always a delight. Home on the last bus, and back to the yarn/books by 6pm. Truly special.

[Melissa!]

Ah, sundays! Sundays in the summer are divine for my family & I - no soccer and no Symphony rehearsal - after 11am mass we'll either go out to lunch at our favorite sunday haunt or make lunch at home and lounge around our yard. It's a day we try not to do any housework - a day for us to enjoy being together playing games or gathering w/ family. My husband loves cooking the sunday dinner - it is practically the one day we sit down & dine together as a family. One sunday a month we gather with Dan's 3 sisters & their families. It truly is a day of reflection and counting our blessings.
Ah, sundays!

[BB]

I currently work on Sundays, moderating an online book club, but soon I will once again have the day just for me.
I will garden because I love being outdoors. I'll wear my absolutely most awful clothes and no makeup. I won't even wash my face. I can't indulge in extra food, being on a strict diet; instead, I'll indulge in "easy" food - sandwiches and strawberries, tea and cheese on crackers.
I love Sundays!

[BB]

I currently work on Sundays, moderating an online book club, but soon I will once again have the day just for me.
I will garden because I love being outdoors. I'll wear my absolutely most awful clothes and no makeup. I won't even wash my face. I can't indulge in extra food, being on a strict diet; instead, I'll indulge in "easy" food - sandwiches and strawberries, tea and cheese on crackers.
I love Sundays!