This Week

 We know about Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday but  each day of this week has a name..................

Collop Monday had other names in different parts of the country - Carnival Monday, Rose Monday, Hall Monday, Peasen Monday and Nickernan Night.

Nicky, nicky nan,

Give me a pancake and then I'll be gone,

But if you give me none

I'll throw a great stone

And down your door shall come.

This was the last day for eating meat and  for eating up collops of bacon and meat. Any fresh meat still available would be sliced and salted to preserve it until after Lent . A Collop - a Scandinavian word, means a slice of meat.  

 

Shrove Tuesday also had other names -Bannock Night, Brose Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.

Shrove Tuesday is the last day of Shrovetide and can fall anytime between 3rd February and 9th March.  And since medieval times  the last day for rich foods before Lent fasting starting the next day -and it really was fasting back then - no eggs, no fats, no meat. It was customary to make confession on this day too. But it was also a day for merrymaking and fun and feasting on the last of the eggs and butter.

Pancake Tuesday is a very happy day,

If we don't have a holiday we'll all run away,

Where shall we run, up High Lane,

And here comes the teacher with a great big cane.

Mix a pancake, stir a pancake, pop it in the pan,

Fry the pancake, toss the pancake -

Catch it if you can.

( children's rhymes from the past )

Lacemakers had to stop using candles on this day, no matter the date or the weather conditions.

Ash Wednesday 
The first of the 40 days of  abstinence. The word Lent comes from old English lencten  and Germanic langatin  meaning spring or lengthening of the days. Originally only 1 meal a day was eaten during Lent. It's thought the origins  of fasting might date back as far as 325CE to the Council of Nicaea.

Fritter Thursday
Maybe because of the dough fritters that were often eaten in meatless Lent or perhaps using the last of the stored apples dipped in a flour and water batter?

Kissing Friday or in some places Nippy-Hug day
Once this was the day when boys had the right to kiss girls without being told off,  if the kiss was refused they could nip the girls bottom!

(Information from some of my folklore books)

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And meanwhile .......how about GB at the Winter Olympics.........3 Gold Medals - Never been done before! Well done to them all.

Back Tomorrow

Into the Middle of February, Just Books and Shopping.

 And of course next day -the digger had to come back to fill in the grave.... 

................now the entrance is even muddier than yesterdays photo. The mourners and men with the coffin came in the top gate and walked down the shingle path avoiding the mud - thankfully. ( I don't stand watching funerals! but it's right opposite the bungalow so can hardly avoid seeing what's happening when I'm in the kitchen)

Such a grey gloomy week with lots of rain. I've not been far at all. The Winter Olympics on TV have kept me company - curling, skeleton, snowboard cross, ice dance and three books have been finished.....although one was a children's book and read very quickly. I even started to feel guilty that all I'd done was watch TV and read, with the odd bit of housework thrown in but then tried to think of other things I ought to be doing.......and there wasn't anything.

This below is by an author who usually writes under Natasha Solomons. I enjoyed 'The Song Collector' and 'The Novel in the Viola' by her several years ago. This is listed completely separately on the Fantastic Fiction website, a one-off under N.E. Solomons, a sometimes violent thriller set in the Balkans after the war there. Details here.

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As mentioned the other day I was out of carrots and eggs, for the good reason of Son doing a roast dinner here for us all last Sunday, so  shopping needed doing 4 days earlier than planned.

There was no point just getting two items so I did the weeks shop at Aldi with lots of bits that will last for several weeks and replacing things that had been used in the last couple of weeks.

Another one  for the 'food-shop-photo-fans!'

There's soft cheese and Blue Stilton (still no Shropshire Blue), tin of tomatoes, two decaf ground coffee - while they had it in stock as they often don't. Celery, kale, carrots and apples. A big tub of peanut butter (no salt, no sweetener - just peanuts, lasts me for months) 1 dozen free range eggs, 4 pints milk and a 600g pack of mini chicken breast fillets.- which I divided up into  5  portions before freezing. The UPF were stuffing mix and tortilla chips and a packet of figgy biscuits- they're there somewhere.

Then on my way home I called in at a village butchers for some lamb scrag/neck of lamb chops and they had some fresh cut,  ¾ Kg for £3 so I was able to divide into 2 separate portions before freezing. I'll be making a delicious lamb stew and dumplings twice (two meals each time) sometime in the next couple of months.

Total spend £30.92. Food spend so far this month £54.27

Out of curiosity at the end of the month I'm going to see what % of my purchases are fruit and veg and other basic simple foods - and how many are Ultra Processed Foods.

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There's a jumble sale today, I might go, if I don't run into flooded roads on the way .

Daffodils and Mud

Found something to post about..............

Like the snowdrop photos the other day, these daffodil buds, not too far from opening, are on the bank of the Churchyard. The few daffodils that survive in my garden are a long way behind.  

After weeks of rain the mini digger came to the churchyard to dig a new grave. Now the lower entrance to the burial ground looks like this. This is often the way mourners and the coffin bearers enter for the committal....oh dear.