Blackberrying to chores

I am uncertain when exactly I first heard this song, however, it would have been sometime in my early teens. I know that Sundays were very special to me in my youth and recall often humming this significant song in my late teens. In my earlier years, blackberrying expeditions, local rambles, and family board game sessions used to follow the delicious gravy topped luncheon eaten along with a Tarzan movie. Later on, ringing church bells was a significant piece of my usual Sunday. With my excess enthusiasm, I not only listened to a weekly radio program that lasted five minutes of bells from somewhere in England, but also rang bells for both the morning and evening service. For a few years, I additionally attended a Sunday night hand-bell group.

Once I had left school in 1982, I took a year out to bum about before seeking employment. Sundays were then filled with space in which to breathe rather than to scribble out homework essays and math problems into my schoolbooks. Sunday therefore grew even more beautiful. This song simply wrapped up my attitude to Sunday throughout this era of my life. I enjoyed my Sundays: they were beautiful to me.

Sundays nowadays are somewhat different. I tend to get up late rather than early; I no longer attend a church let alone ring the bells, and although I still take a walk on occasion, it is now upon the Illawarra escarpment or along the local coastal tracks; no longer am I wandering over the fields, brooks and hills of Southern England. I also tend to do my house chores and gardening at the weekends, being mostly seated at a computer during the week. The song is therefore far less appropriate these days and I have long since stopped humming it in accompaniment to my joy. I could not inform you of the lyrics, but I can still hum you that tune.