When the Antiques Roadshow theme song blasts out of my television, I feel sick to my stomach.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against the programme. I don’t actually watch it with any regularity, but if I do, it’s because I’m procrastinating in front of the television rather than doing something more useful.

But that’s the point. It’s on at a time when I’m likely to be procrastinating because it’s on a Sunday evening—and Sunday evenings are generally a time that I feel a bit rubbish.

It’s been a problem for as long as I can remember.

From around 4pm, most weeks, the Sunday melancholy appears.

I’m feeling it now, as I write this. I’m perturbed by it.

Not because I don’t understand why I’m feeling this way. I do. It’s entirely understandable and natural. I’ve enjoyed having a couple of days of relative downtime and I don’t really want to have to go back to work tomorrow.

It’s nothing to do with my job. I’ve had jobs I hate, and jobs I quite like, and my current job is one of the most enjoyable I’ve had. But it’s not better than a weekend. Weekends are brilliant, even the weekends when I don’t really do anything (sometimes they’re the best ones…). I’m always sad when the weekend has to end.

What perplexes me slightly is that I can’t be the only person who feels like this on a Sunday evening (and a quick Google search reveals that loads of people feel this way — which possibly renders this post a little redundant really).

I’d always assumed that the accepted idiomatic expression in general use is “that Monday morning feeling.” Not “that Sunday afternoon/evening feeling.”

I understand why. It’s a much better-sounding expression and uses alliteration. And Monday mornings are quite hard.

But for my money, Sunday evenings are much worse.

And it turns out there is actually a phrase for that feeling. It’s the “Sunday Scaries,” apparently.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I feel I might be a bit too long in the tooth to adopt that phrase.

But I fully support the sentiment.