Lenten observance

With the latest round of fake beef news to hit the news, that schools and hospitals were having a mare with their supplies, I think I have been quite prudent in giving up horse meat for Lent.  Perforce this also means all beef meat products.  I bought some Aberdeen Angus burgers from Aldi on the 'Specially Selected' range - now I really know what that means!  I ate two of the four before this 'consumer crisis' broke and they were delicious but I threw away the other two, to the disgust of Altaa.  I have little problem with eating Bucharest Anton rather than Aberdeen Angus, except the price should have been marked down and I would like to know that the beast wasn't diseased or pumped up with steroids - though knowing nothing about a horse's cranium, I do know that no matter how much you grill a BSE-infected burger, the proteins still give you CJD and I don't want to take the risk with horses.

Mind you, horse meat isn't too much of a sacrifice, so I have given up all cider, beer, ale and other draft and bottled fermented drinks.  This still allows wine and spirits.  I have given up all alcohol in the past once but a bi-annual Wine and Wisdom I regularly attend always falls during Lent and it is rather depressing watching others quaff, while I remain sober as a judge.  I wanted to give up all meat last year but Altaa vetoed it, saying it would make it impossible when it came to making dinner.

A curate who was once at our church, related a story of how she was at a seminary training up budding priests and all around her were boasting of what they were giving up for Lent.  She found this grating and when asked of herself, she responded that she was giving up Christianity, inducing worried stares and anxious confabs over whether she was serious.  She felt she made her point.