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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

It’s 5.30 on the Sunday nights of our childhoods. AIBU to ask you what you are doing?

536 replies

StudentProblems · 31/01/2021 17:38

It is 5.30 on any Sunday night of your childhood. For me it’s approximately 1997. I am having my hair nit combed in the front room, having been told off for not eating all my roast pork. Dad is messing around with the fire because it won’t draw properly. It’s all a bit tense.

What are you doing?

OP posts:
Littlecaf · 31/01/2021 18:30

Late 1980s, early 90s. Watching something like the Box of Delights or the Borrowers or something BBC kids drama on TV, probably with buttered crumpets. Mum doing the ironing. Dad the paper. Then bath and bed. Good times!

pearpickingporky84 · 31/01/2021 18:30

At my Grandparent’s house for tea with my Mum, sisters, aunt and cousins (the men always stayed at home for some reason). There would be M&S garlic sausage, macaroni with crisps crumbled on the top, something nice for dessert and then Granny would come to the table with the wee basket she kept chocolate bars on and hand it round all the children to choose one!

Bluetrews25 · 31/01/2021 18:32

Early 70s - watching Black Beauty (love that theme tune) and ready salted crisps. Always a salady-type tea. Only just realised it would have been because we had a roast at lunchtime.

Black Beauty theme

Lightsabre · 31/01/2021 18:32

Recording the Top 20 from the radio onto a cassette tape. Playing vinyl records - general mayhem that 4 kids bring.

maddiemookins16mum · 31/01/2021 18:33

@pearpickingporky84

At my Grandparent’s house for tea with my Mum, sisters, aunt and cousins (the men always stayed at home for some reason). There would be M&S garlic sausage, macaroni with crisps crumbled on the top, something nice for dessert and then Granny would come to the table with the wee basket she kept chocolate bars on and hand it round all the children to choose one!
Wow, I would have adored that 😊
FedUpAtHomeTroels · 31/01/2021 18:34

It would be the 60/70's Setting the table for Sunday tea with my parents sister and grandmother and two Aunts. Usually salad with bread and butter, tea and some trifle or jelly and evaporated milk for pudding.
Then into the bath.

FlowEr262 · 31/01/2021 18:35

80s

Salmon sandwiches & Sara Lee gateaux for tea, after lunchtime roast.

Packing bag for school whilst my brother and sister both hurriedly completed homework for school. I would have done my on the day I received it!

Family watching antiques roadshow or similar. Wink

Spacecudet · 31/01/2021 18:37

@Chardonnay73 we would also watch Howard's Way, but not before Ski Sunday.

cautiouscovidity · 31/01/2021 18:38

My sibling and I are about 7 & 5 and it's the mid 1980s. We've had a bath and hair-wash and are eating tea sat round the coffee table in the lounge (a treat reserved for Sundays). The electric fire is on - maybe two bars if the weather is particularly cold Smile.
The coffee table has a little cloth that was embroidered by my nana. We are watching something on TV: maybe 'Supergran', 'The Return of the Antelope' or the BBC adaptation of 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'. Tea itself will probably consist of:

  • crumpets with marmite
  • some savoury snack like Twiglets or those little cheesy potato triangles
  • Battenberg cake
  • A cup of tea (the teapot wearing a woolly tea-cosy)

Tea is served on my mum's best china tea set with cups and saucers.

Whirlwind14 · 31/01/2021 18:38

Late 80s/90s
BBC Narnia adaption
Playing with barbies whilst mum irons the school uniform and dad polishes the shoes.
Bath with matey, then My Little Pony nightie and hair blow dried and brushed in front of fire.
The Antiques Road Show appears there somewhere and so does Heartbeat...

Grapewrath · 31/01/2021 18:38

Late 80s. My parents would be drunk. I’d be on my own eating sweets and watching TV.
We had been to my Mums sisters for a roast. She has a baby and I know evenings at hers mean cheese and crackers and babies smelling of vosene hair drying and Karvol baby drops. I wish I was there.

Ihatefish · 31/01/2021 18:39

Early-mid 80s eating a jacket potato and cheese followed by a French fancy, will then have my one weekly bath wash my hair then sit in pjs for Howard’s way

havanacabana · 31/01/2021 18:39

Late 90s/early 2000s can’t remember what Sunday night tv was then?

Whirlwind14 · 31/01/2021 18:40

@cautiouscovidity oh we used to have a
Little white cloth on the coffee table too with similar offerings. Always a Mr Kipling!

Makingnumber2 · 31/01/2021 18:40

Either on way back from my Granny's house- stuffed to brim from a roast lunch, 2 helpings of pudding and with a £5 note in my pocket that had been shoved covertly into my hand before leaving or home after being at my Granny's and getting my stuff ready for school the next day like bag and lunch.

Happytodayhappytomorrow · 31/01/2021 18:41

I'm probably still at the stables, leaving it until the last minute to cycle home, offering to help everyone and anyone who has their own horse or pony in the hope that they will appreciate my help and maybe offer to let me ride their horse/pony one day.

lockdownshmockdown · 31/01/2021 18:41

90s

Post bath, sitting between my dad's legs. He's on the couch, I'm on the floor. He towel dries and then blow dries my hair and cleans my ears. He will brush my hair "until the advert break" of a favourite programme. Maybe Stars in their Eyes or Blind Date, I forget which day of the week they were. I used to beg him "one more advert break" because I loved the feeling of my hair being brushed.

Sometimes, while he had the cotton buds out, he'd clean the cats ears. She bloody loved it!

ghostyslovesheets · 31/01/2021 18:41

mid 70's - bathed and watching a BBC children's drama eating a boiled egg in my nylon nightdress and matching nylon padded dressing gown - oh the static fun!

ChaToilLeam · 31/01/2021 18:41

Early 80s. First dinner, then listening to the Top 40. Then a bath and hair wash, listening to the Annie Nightingale show. Getting homework out of the way before starting back at school on the Monday.

mogloveseggs · 31/01/2021 18:41

1980s. Watching one of the bbc dramas then bath and hair dried and curled- best bit of the week.
1990s. Last minute homework on the rug in front of the fire. Shower then something a bit more gritty on the telly with dm-band of gold rings a bell.

VioletCharlotte · 31/01/2021 18:42

This thread makes me smile! Sunday night were always so boring, yet I look back at the now and it was all so cosy. We used to have a roast dinner at lunch time, so on Sunday evening's we had 'tea' in the sitting room in front of the TV. Mum would bring in the toaster and we'd have crumpets with butter and golden syrup, followed by homemade chocolate cake, washed down with a nice cup of tea.

There always seemed to be a travel show on which Mum and Dad would watch, I would normally read a book. I was a real bookworm as a child (still am). I would probably have been reading something by Enid Blyton.

Inpersuitofhappiness · 31/01/2021 18:42

90s, washing my siblings hair, and running the nit comb through.
And washing our clothes for the next week at school.

switswoo81 · 31/01/2021 18:43

Irish 80' s version.
Just home from the Sunday Spin, having tea and waiting for Where in the World and Glenroe .
Probably playing with my Fashion Wheel or Sindy dolls

letmepeeinpeace · 31/01/2021 18:43

It's strange but these threads always make me sad!

morningtoncrescent62 · 31/01/2021 18:43

Watching a period or creepy kids drama on the BBC and eating leftovers from the Sunday roast.