There is nothing nicer than a family Sunday lunch. However, I have realised that Sunday lunch is not quite the same when you are at the helm as the Mother.
Last weekend, I spent most of Sunday morning peeling, chopping and basting, regularly checking the clock to ensure I am on the track with the timings – something my mother says is critical for the perfect roast. Needless to say, by midday I am surrounded by three small people saying, “Can I have something to eat?” I distract them with a small bowel of peanuts and glance again at the potatoes, which are as usual letting me down with not a crispy edge in sight. My husband looks up from the Sunday newspapers and asks, “We have got bread sauce haven’t we?” Oh woops, I knew there was something I needed to get. I fob him off with some feeble explanation and appease him with a new jar of redcurrant jelly. He disappears back into the Business section mumbling, “It’s just not the same without all the trimmings.”
The cries ring out from the playroom as the hunger sets in and arguments begin. If I don’t accelerate, this could evolve into temper tantrums, resulting with at least one child missing lunch altogether, choosing instead to spend it face down in their pillow. Red-faced, I speed up my gravy-whisking, pleading with it to thicken. Just to add to the pressure, the timer periodically beeps announcing each vegetable. Finally, I’m there and summon my husband to take his traditional place before the carving plate. I watch him pull my beautiful free-range bird apart, having learnt never to criticise a man when he is carving. Finally, we all sit round the table and for a small moment we are the perfect Sunday lunchtime family. From then on, one or other, or all three children periodically slide on and off their chairs. We battle and bribe over eating their vegetables and say, “You wouldn’t behave like this at Granny’s”. My husband and I eat at record speed, trying to remain calm. Suddenly I smell burning. I make a dive for the oven door, only to discover the very crispy, charred roast potatoes, which I had forgotten about. I know the sight of anything ‘black’ will cause the children to burst into a group “Urrgh”, so I quickly shovel them into the bin.
Having spent hours cooking the Sunday roast, it is over in a matter of minutes. I am left standing in the kitchen alone, leaning against the oven. I glance across at the piles of pans in the sink, close my eyes, enjoy the silence and count to ten. At least it is over for another week.
