Monday now the weekend
For Kate Hannah, Sunday mornings do not mean lazy sleep-ins, long breakfasts with the papers and time to catch up with family and friends.
Instead, Sunday means leaving home at six in the morning and a day spent working to a soundtrack of clattering crockery, knives and forks scraping plates clean and other people enjoying a day off.
As the manager of Lemon Lane cafe in Claremont, Ms Hannah is one of a growing number of West Australians who spend their Sundays working.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that the number of Australians working on weekends has been on the rise, with almost one-third of working people doing some form of weekend work.
No WA-specific figures have been collected but the advent of Sunday trading means that for many Sunday can no longer be regarded as a day of rest.
So long as some West Australians want to shop on a Sunday, others will have to be employed to serve them.
Ms Hannah said when she migrated from Liverpool five years ago she was surprised at the difference in trading hours between her old and adopted cities.
"It was quite novel to have a Sunday off," she said. "I found it quite nice, really."
These days Lemon Lane, a licensed cafe and restaurant tucked off Bayview Terrace, opens seven days a week and Ms Hannah's "weekend" now consists of taking Monday and Tuesday off.
She is pragmatic about her unconventional working week, which means she is in the cafe from Wednesday to Sunday.
She said though it was sometimes frustrating to miss out on a big Saturday night with friends, she benefited in other ways, such as never struggling to find time to get to the bank or the post office and not competing with crowds at the shops.
"I'd rather be here when it's busiest," she said.
"And I do love having days off during the week."
