Vicky Ewan: Celebrating special moments around the Sunday lunch table

I had occasion to propose a toast at my dad's Sunday lunch table. There were seven of us gathered, across three generations, and I felt there was plenty to celebrate.

Before they left our house, I had informed my younger son, who was on table-laying duty with his sister, that we would need champagne flutes to be added to the glassware at each place setting.

Wandering over the road a little later to find the glasses duly placed, I popped the cork from the chilled bottle I had freshly plucked from the fridge and circled the table, filling each flute with pale gold wine.

As is usual at these lunches, my husband was the final person to arrive. Always chef extraordinaire for the weekly roast, he had cultivated a rigid system over his months in role, preparing the food at our house then dishing it up onto waiting plates, fortifying each with a blast from the microwave and sealing its surface in foil to guard against temperature deterioration during its passage, then dispatching each serving via willing familial hands across the road to my dad's house.

For week upon week, we tackled this task, regularly burning our fingers on the blisteringly hot ceramic and spilling copious amounts of gravy in the process. It proved to be a particularly laborious undertaking when the front door was out of action over an apparently endless series of Sundays, a period that happened to fall during the winter months, much to our discomfort.

Come rain or almost non-existent shine, we would trudge from the back door of the house up the lengthy drive shared with several neighbouring properties, past yet more houses, and over the road, bearing aloft our mealtime burdens - which would be rapidly cooling at every step.

It was only after several consecutive complaints and an unfortunate episode featuring a gravy-splattered hallway that we decided to microwave the meals and add the gravy once we were safely in situ; this observation has made a world of difference.

My husband, finally alone and with only one plate and the gravy jug to transfer, takes it upon himself to complete the washing up and kitchen tidying processes initiated some time before; only then will he transfer his own dinner to my dad's dining room.

On the Sunday in question, becoming aware of the gradual arrival of plated meals, family members began to appear from the four corners of the house and gather at the table, eyeing the extra glasses - the manifestation of which had everyone speculating exactly what was being marked - with suspicious interest.

Once we were all seated, and before the munching could begin, I raised my glass. A hush of expectation fell, and every eye swivelled my way. Now, I will readily admit I am not a confident public speaker; words elude me, my courage fails me, and I often end up fumbling and stumbling through the ordeal, impressing no-one and eliciting only tacit pity. I was, however, in the bosom of my family - as safe a space as I was ever to find.

At any rate, I spoke only briefly, outlining the successes of recent days: my younger daughter securing her first adult job; my elder son's recent performances on stage in his college show; my younger son's achievement of officially becoming a 'word millionaire' at school through reading sufficient books to add up to a million words of text (thankfully, he was not required to count them himself).

Finally, I turned to my brother and sister-in-law and proffered my congratulations on their forthcoming wedding anniversary, recalling the happy day we had shared with them four years previously.

With one accord, we raised our flutes, each of us - at my younger son's insistence - bent on chiming our own glass with every other around the table: a protracted yet satisfying process.

Formalities dispensed with, we turned our attention to the tender chunks of delicious beef brisket, roast potatoes with roughened crust, a veritable rainbow of vegetables, and thick onion and red wine gravy, steaming fragrantly from our plates - sublime.

The sparkling wine was the perfect accompaniment - crisp, cool and chillingly effervescent. As I reflect on our small victories and celebrations, I realise that there were so many other things we could have extolled that day: the tastiness of the food prepared by my husband's fair hand; the train that carried my brother and sister-in-law to Devon; my dad's tenacious health - all factors that had conspired to bring us together in that special way.

Though the table was smaller than it had once been, its settings fewer and its load lighter, there were still reasons enough for us to sit and eat together. I'll raise my glass to that, any day of the week.

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