Five days to go before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lenten fasting for many Christians. Of course, that means that Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is coming up too.

We didn’t call it “Fat Tuesday” when I was growing up. We knew that the religious context of the day, the last day of Shrovetide, deemed it Shrove Tuesday. But we didn’t call it that, either. We called it “Pancake Tuesday.” And the big news story of the day was always which housewife or young lady won the Pancake Race in Olney, Buckinghamshire. (Take a look at the photo in the linked article. It seems the transgender sports craze (and I use the word advisedly) hasn’t reached this sleepy little town yet. At least, not obviously. And if it’s not obvious, it probably hasn’t.)

The Pancake Race, like another historic Spring event, the Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling, has had its ups and downs over the years with the Health and Safety authorities of the nanny-state occasionally complaining, reacting to injuries, changing the rules and banning parts of the festivities outright. But both seem to be heartily enjoyed in the closing years of the second decade of the twenty-first century, and that is nice to see.