Soon it will be dark. It is reassuring that Monday always follows a Sunday. This is what we must cling too, no matter how slow the Sunday is passing. On our daily walk we noticed even nature was struggling with a bad case of Sunday gloom. The tulips were a bit despondent with the Camellia buds rotting even better than normal. The morning is usually the least gloomy and for some the best part. Many get the Sunday paper, scan the adds for Fiji holidays or three metre TVs with inbuilt DVD capability. After that, many will settle for sweaty rugby or tennis ball whacking. The rot sets in after that.
‘Don’t go to Australia my friends warned me back in 1956, there too is the dreaded English Sunday.’ No one ever went to England for a holiday. France, Spain or even Austria and Germany were preferred. As it was, each time we arrived back to Australia our first port of call was Fremantle, worse… on a Sunday too. The English Sunday always held some notoriety as being very peaceful and dormant, and more than just quiet. Many Continental friends keen to spread bad tidings told us that you could not get a beer on Sunday. Can one imagine? The very day that one would go out with family ,visit a café and perhaps enjoy a beer or even a shifter of advocaat or jenever on the one day off, the Sunday in Australia forbade all that. It would be many years before a beer would be allowed on Sunday.
Of course, all that has changed. England rocks and as young people will testify..it is really cool there now. Australia is now being swamped with tourists looking for excitement and space to move around without having to wear oxygen masks or be shot at. Even so, I am still struggling with passing the Sunday. I try and remain optimistic and look for things to happen. The Bowral tulip festival is one good escape, even if just to watch all the tourists. Another one is to prepare for a really complicated dish needing lots of ingredients that you might have to go and shop at Aldi for. Aldi shopping is one of the greatest Sunday gloom escape diversions to engage in. I relish the chance and go each Sunday. Of course, some of you might prefer Woollies or Coles. Each to their own. It all helps and we have to stand together in overcoming a Sunday.
On Sunday many products get down-priced as the date of expiration gets closer. You can observe customers carefully weighing up the pros and cons of getting a discounted meat product against the risk of a bout of intestinal hurry. What to do with a pig’s trotter that is one day from extinction? Or what to make of a slightly discoloured packet of double smoked ham but for a mouth-watering $1.50? Or a suspiciously pale looking salmon cutlet, but for $3.99? Should it be taken home and the discounted ticket peeled off with the suspicious husband left in the dark. What to do with your conscience, especially after he is doubled over the porcelain bowl heaving and wracked with dreadful diarrhoea? There has to be a limit. Be careful, don’t overdo escaping the Sunday. You would not want to be charged with manslaughter.
Many take to gardening in the Sunday afternoon. The lawnmower taken out. A bag of soil opened, a plant to be potted. Discussions about the state of this year’s Hellebores. Questioning the state of mites on up-coming roses. Is it too early yet for the white-oil? Should the shears be sharpened, the shed re-organised? The ingenuity of the Sunday escapee knows no bounds. A good husband might offer help in the kitchen. ‘Would you like me to spin the lettuce, darling,’ I overheard our neighbour saying. It was a particularly bad and difficult Sunday but it helped him pull through.
All of a sudden it was 6.30 pm and we rushed to the SBS News. Then at 7,the ABC. A quick glance at e-mail and at 9.30 in bed.
It will soon be over…glorious Monday is knocking.
Tags: abc., Aldi, Coles, Gloom, Ham, Pig's trotter, salmon, SBS, Sunday, Woolworth
Oosterman Treats Blog 
September 27, 2015 at 4:26 am |
A real treat as usual Gerard. Sunday can be a lonely day for some. Two widowed lady friends often call to play bridge I suppose to bridge the hours between morning and night.
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September 27, 2015 at 6:08 am |
I have always noticed that Sundays seem to drag. It is probably me. I used to tell my kids when they were bored, especially during school holidays; “you are boring.”
They would probably have turned the tables on me by now.
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September 27, 2015 at 5:38 am |
Those of us who are no longer in the work force have a different outlook about Sundays ( and Mondays), it seems!
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September 27, 2015 at 6:05 am |
I love Mondays and all normal days. I noticed in Bali there is little sense of differences between the days. All days are all celebrations of life.
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September 27, 2015 at 8:27 am |
Did you forget to watch the Insiders, Gerard? It is usually interesting and a way to sum up the weeks misdemeanours.
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September 27, 2015 at 10:30 am |
Yes, we did watch Insiders with Barry Cassidy. We noticed Brandis avoiding the questions about Manus and Nauru coming under investigations again.
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September 27, 2015 at 12:41 pm |
I never cared for Sundays, it’s kind of a boring day, but I really dislike it during football season. It’s kine of an off day. I piddle in the kitchen, or work in the yard..silly stuff like that.
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September 27, 2015 at 9:10 pm |
Yes, the Sunday has to be fought tooth and nail to survive get over it. Some lucky suburbs have garbage collection on a Monday so that involves taking the bins out on a Sunday. At least it is something to do.
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September 27, 2015 at 9:33 pm
LOL
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September 27, 2015 at 7:13 pm |
I don’t think Sundays really exist unless we let them.
When I was young there was a law which said that only ‘bona fide’ travellers could buy a drink on a Sunday. Bona fide meant you had travelled over three miles. This wonderful law resulted in many people getting into cars and driving a few miles just to get a drink – then driving home under the influence. Who came up with that one!
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September 27, 2015 at 9:15 pm |
Oh, I see. That was the rule after we arrived here as well. You could get a drink away from home. Even so, one had to show proof of address and a stern looking man wearing a smoking jacket would look you over.
Even today there are some very obscure licensing laws that don’t make much sense. At Aldi only register 5 sells alcohol even though all the cash registers look the same. I asked about it but ‘it is the law’ is as far as I got.
No wonder binge drinking is rife.
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September 27, 2015 at 7:30 pm |
Being ‘retired,’ I look at Sunday as I do most other days. I work, so to speak. We are spending a quiet moment here today, however, with members of our book club who came up from Sacramento to spend the weekend. Three people are on i-Pads, one is reading the Sunday paper, and I am on my MacBook. Soon we will be off for a walk and then mid afternoon dinner at a brewpub. –Curt
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September 27, 2015 at 9:17 pm |
Yes, sometimes one can get away from Sunday gloom by thinking it is a normal working day. We used to have a florist shop and would open on Sunday. It helped enormously. The shop was named ‘Bloomsbury’.
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September 28, 2015 at 2:23 am |
Sundays are for meeting friends and family who may have to work during the week. It is good for general well being to have one day in the week where you do not have to work. Of course some jobs require work even on a Sunday. But people who have to work on a Sunday should have another day during the week free of work!
After you worked five or six days during a week you do need one or two days to recuperate.
Of course retired people have the freedom to live nearly every day as though it was a Sunday. For some people this may get pretty boring. Peter and I are never bored. We can live quite well without having to go to work! There are so many pleasant things one can do, if one has not this duty to go to work. There is reading and writing, travelling as well as just walking, and of course keeping in touch with friends and family.
Peter and I often play Rummy Cub, just to have a relaxing time and to keep the brain somewhat active. Come to think of i, we definitely ought to do more gardening. We just enjoy sitting in the garden with a cup of tea or coffee, but we usually are not so keen on doing any work in the garden – – – Naturally, our computers and being on NBN is always giving us lots and lots of interesting times! 🙂 🙂
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September 28, 2015 at 2:39 am |
Yes Uta, while I agree with everything you mention, it doesn’t take away that the Sunday has a feeling about it that normal days don’t have.
Some feel it, others don’t. It is a very personal perspective. I never feel that in Bali nor did we in Argentina or Italy.
Fremantle on a Sunday in 1956 when we first encountered streets without people about. I can’t say that Holland escaped it totally, there too a Sunday could be difficult, especially if it rained with a strong westerly blowing about. There is something in writing that backs up my peculiar perception of a Sunday. I’ll look it up and I’ll add it later on. I do remember reading ‘The demon of Noontide’
There is a lot about ‘Sunday’ on the net. Here is a video;
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/sunday-fear-syndrome-2014-6
and this one too.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/40-think-sundays-are-the-most-boring-day-of-the-week/
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September 28, 2015 at 8:46 am
Thanks for this, Gerard. Have to come back to it later.
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September 28, 2015 at 6:58 am |
Sundays hold no fears for me. Lately, we stopped shopping on Sundays to slow down even more.
During the sixties when the pubs were closed on Sundays I experienced first hand how Australians dealt with it.
I worked in Nemingha, near Tamworth, at the time and I stayed in a pub. When, on a Sunday, I came out for breakfast the public bar was “chocker blog”, as the saying goes. The front door was locked. I inquired whether they would be afraid of the police raiding the place.
hile ile They pointed out two uniformed coppers in the crowd holding their beers instead of an arrest warrant. While formerly the wives and the kiddies were outside the pub and hubby taken out a beer from time to time, now the pubs are open for everyone. They have a kiddy corner and free meals for them while Mum and Dad play the pokies.
Did we, the migrants, bring this change about? I don’t think so.
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September 28, 2015 at 8:25 am |
Berlioz: Sundays don’t hold fears for me also. I have made observations that I write about, perhaps unclearly. I just thought it odd than it was so hard to get an alcoholic drink on a Sunday and could not understand what a Sunday had to do with it.
I think it was the church of England that was behind it, certainly not the Catholic church. Italy, Spain and Latin America countries consume alcohol on all days but, especially on Sunday with family and around the table. It helps to share joy.
As for pokies supporting free meals and kiddies corners, I better not get into that subject. I see housewives with shopping bags next to them silently and with grim determination feeding coins in a machine. No conversation, no laughter no social exchange, just waiting for the rattle of coins. It could not get any grimmer.
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September 28, 2015 at 8:30 am |
From ‘asidewrite’, A good and rare act of compassion.
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September 28, 2015 at 11:43 am |
Oh, dear! You make Sunday sound so awful! I have to say that I miss those days of nothing being open and proper Sunday lunches (or dinner as we call them in the north of England). A whole day with no work, spent with the people I like most in the world. Nothing better, even if we do spend a chunk of it in Aldi from time to time.
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September 28, 2015 at 12:59 pm |
I am glad you and others see the Sunday differently. The piece was a bit tongue in cheek. My Sundays are spent doing what I do during the week. I meet up with friends and family during the week as much as in week-ends. I still think Sundays are slow to move and somewhat turgid and artificial in atmosphere, but that is just a personal observation shared by some and not by others. Vive la difference.
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September 29, 2015 at 12:00 am |
I spend Sundays with the sinking feeling that tomorrow is Monday and the annoyance that I didn’t do more with Saturday.
But Doctor Who started last week, so Sundays are bearable for a while.
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September 29, 2015 at 1:23 am |
Yes, stay firm and walk the talk each Sunday, MoSY. They soon pass. I was jubilant yesterday. You should have seen me. I was hop-skipping and humming all at once.
Had a huge medical with nurse asking me all sorts of questions after I had peed in a little jar. She then stuck a little stick in it as if to measure the PH of a swimming pool.
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September 30, 2015 at 8:37 am |
Didn’t you ever hear of the Sunday Roast?
That’s where all the people were, in the kitchen!
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September 30, 2015 at 10:15 am |
Yes, that sounds better than watching cricket or football.
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September 30, 2015 at 10:34 am
Ah! Now I understand what you meant. I am with you there. HATE the Australian love of watching these on TV
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