No not Lent, just me. I'm on my second packet of crisps in five minutes and I haven't got a non-frugality dispensation.
I'm exhausted. I'm at war with a kiddy virus /kiddy with virus. And I want to die. I'm also trying to write about The Creature's language acquisition in Frankenstein. So I'm knackered - should that have a k in front or not? Who cares.
Seriously now lets do a bit of bothering. Lent was a time for rest. Enforced rest? Just imagine you're a medieval peasant and it's the depths of February or March. The earth is as hard as iron (thanks Christina), and the frosty wind is moaning. This is pre-Global warming folks. All your farm animals are pregnant - no artificial insemination to effect lamb birth at Christmas - you wait for the proper lambing time at the end of March or the beginning of April. The cow hasn't enough food to produce much milk. The hens have stopped laying, so no eggs. You're on your sixth bowl of boiled rotten cabbage today with only an oatcake (have you ever tasted one of those things) to look forward to tomorrow. The beer and the bread are more flat than usual because there isn't enough heat to make the yeast grow and raise. You could poach a trout or a rabbit. Phew. At least it's too cold for Bubonic Plague. So what do you do?
You do nothing. You lie there with exhaustion. You have an enforced rest.
Spring was a time of starvation for the poor, so lets not get too rosy about Lent
