Stop!

Shrove Tuesday. Tomorrow is the start of Lent and six weeks of fasting.

I might have mentioned that I am re-addicted to Radio 4 and there was a lovely piece this afternoon which discussed the secular origins of Lent. Before animal husbandry became a science most folk slaughtered their animals at the end of the season and there was much feasting at the end of the year. The reason was simply that few of the animals would survive the winter anyway. Six weeks of not eating the meat of any four-legged animal meant that the new season's herds had time to become established and this was the pattern of life in an agrarian society. The church became involved and retained this period of fasting and added some other prohibitions including eggs, milk and sex - remember that this was the Catholic church so sex had to be in there somewhere - no nooky over Lent. At this time folk were used to fasting; Wednesday, Friday and Saturday were already fast days but it's not all bad news.

Monasteries, the inhabitants of these places tend to know a bit about religious observance, brewed strong beers to sustain the monks during periods of fasting - no prohibition on a bevvy, in fact it might be said that having a beer is as much an obligation as undertaking a pilgrimage to Walsingham or a wallfartort such as Kloster Andechs in Bavaria which, by the way, brews the most wonderful beer.

So today is the day to eat all the meat, eggs and milk in the house but stick to wine tonight; hang on to the beer and drink it liberally over the next six weeks to demonstrate piety. I hope that this helps anyone unclear about Lent.