Second Helpings

Sunday Sweet Sunday

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never been fond of Sundays. I hear all those old cliches about ‘Sunday, sweet Sunday with nothing to do,’ ‘Easy like Sunday morning,’ and witness others who lounge around in pyjamas reading newspapers and drinking coffee, but somehow it’s never been that way for me.

Take last Sunday for instance. Son had arranged to bring the grand monsters over for lunch, leaving Mey Ling to enjoy some peace. The two older ones had been off school with sore throats and coughs, but seemingly were on the mend. They arrived with the usual flurry and continuous bouncing.

Angel had brought a box she’d decorated to advertise her cake sale, but the flaw in her plan was she had no cakes. Nanna to the rescue. Of course Dylan too decided he wanted to make cakes so off we set for the kitchen. While Angel meticulously stirred her mixture and carefully cracked her eggs in a cup, Dylan proceeded to create a flour cloud, splatter a large portion of his ingredients over the floor and table and crush his eggs with both hands resulting in fishing bits of eggshell out of his cake mixture. I noticed both of them were coughing and snuffling at frequent intervals.

In the meantime Bobby on the run decided to join us in the kitchen where he proceeded to successfully turn on the washing machine and the tumble drier as well as removing and hiding the majority of my fridge magnets. He then discovered a bubble wand and decided it was a light sabre of some kind and an ideal tool for Nanna bashing. Dylan kindly demonstrated it was really for blowing bubbles, but we had to put a stop to that to avoid soap liquid in our cakes.

A few minutes of peace followed while the cakes were in the oven and the kids ate their lunch. While waiting for the cakes to cool Dylan decided to bring down the water pistol from upstairs and had to be reminded it’s for bath time or outside only, so decided to venture into the garden to spray clean the kitchen windows.

On return he stood at the back door and announced he felt sick, then proceeded to confirm his statement all over the doormat. We hurried him to the bathroom and he returned to inform us he’d been sick in five different places. During mopping up operations Bobby decided to part with his trousers and nappy and thought it hilariously funny to run around baring his all.

Back to the cakes. it was time to ice them and obviously they needed every shade of icing imaginable, which entailed using every bowl in the house for mixing purposes. Once iced the cakes, table and floor had to be decorated with sugar strands, chocolate flakes, glaced cherries and anything else available.

Finally Paul announced it was time to go home, so cakes, kids, drinks, nappies and spending money were loaded and off they went. It only took a couple of hours to clear up, wash the pots, vacuum and restore some semblance of order.

I think hubby can eat the cakes they kindly left for Nanna and Granddad. After all I am supposedly dieting.

And of course they kindly left their sore throat and cough bugs exclusively for me.

I can’t believe it’s only four days until it’s Sunday again. I can’t wait.