Lazy Sunday

Without a smile - Without a Throe

A Summer's soft Assemblies go 

To their entrancing end....

- Emily Dickinson

Sunday afternoons in September. Heaven. The light is softer, the breeze is cooler and the heat intensity has dissipated.

I was supposed to go racing out to Greenwich last Sunday to watch a friend play polo, but instead I chose to be lazy and potter about the house. There is nothing I like better than to sit at my kitchen table and look out the window into the plane tree that almost stretches into my apartment. I am lucky enough to have an Italian-red low rise building across the street from me and light galore streaming in the window. So it's hard really to imagine I'm even in New York. Except for the occasional fire engine roaring past my building, Sundays are very chilled in the West Village. Cups of tea, toast with lashings of butter and Vegemite, and the arts section of the New York Times is all I need until lunchtime. Then it's time for a stroll down to Three Lives and Co, a brilliant local bookstore, before finding a table outside a little cafe somewhere to do some people watching. The Village is always good for that. You might spot a poor tourist hopelessly lost in the zig-zagging streets of downtown, Sarah Jessica Parker hiding behind a huge pair of sunglasses or a couple of beautiful looking models after a big night out.

As the sun moves lower over the Hudson River, duck into some charming little boutiques hidden in the Village's side streets. Then it's time for a stroll along the river or if you're lucky, you may chance upon an impromptu jazz session in Washington Square Park. As evening settles, the tourists go back to their midotwn hotels, the bars and restaurants fill with the locals for early dinner and I retire to my bed with a book and a cup of hot chocolate. Who said you have to achieve something every day!