Once upon a time, Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, was a day on which people ate up all the perishable, rich food in their larders before the beginning of the penitential season of Lent.

How times have changed! Nowadays if you want to, your can buy in ready made pancakes/crepes with all manner of lucious fillings, or you can by batter mixes in packets (just add egg and milk - a dear way to buy flour!) or pots where you add water and shake.

Yesterday soneome treated me to home made pancakes for tea - with ice-cream, banana and butterscotch sauce... they were very, very yummy.  Today I used up the last of the batter to make two more pancakes, which I ate with banana and maple syrup... and tasty they were too.

It's a funny day, liturgically, as for most of us its spiritual origins are long lost.  Instead of clearing our fridges and cupboards of luxuries, we buy in extra ingredients.  Instead of penitence, we party. 

Perhaps though, as we hover on the brink between 'ordinary time' (however brief it may be in any given year) and 'Lent' it is good to pause, if only briefly, to decide how the next six weeks will be spent.

This year, my plan is to read through Exodus (40 chapters) and Numbers (36 chapters) and to reflect, briefly each day on what I have (re-)discovered.  Two chapters a day, with time off on Sundays, is not a huge ask.  And I am excited to see what it will bring to me, so much so that I've actually grown a little impatient the last few days... So tomorrow the journey will begin!

For now, though, Shrove Tuesday is a great excuse for a little self-indulgence!