Lent starts tomorrow, and I am looking forward to the Great Fast this year. I don't know why, but I'm really glad it starts so early. Usually I dislike Lent because it always shows me up for the failure I am. But this year I feel almost excited about it! (I'm sure that this won't last long, when I sniff the coffee packet that has to be consigned to the fridge for the next 40 days).
The Station of the Cross above is one that I have been restoring for a local Catholic Church, which was recently renovated, and does look very beautiful, so the Stations now need to be done too. I've just been patching up 5 of them which were damaged whilst being taken down. (So much unneccessary damage is caused to pictures through bad handling!). I tested this one to see if they would benefit from cleaning, and quite clearly they will look much brighter. So the Parish Priest may commission me to do the rest. It is very time-consuming work, so I'll have to do them one at a time, in between my housewifely, and homeschooling duties.
This picture shows a detail, during cleaning, where it can be seen how much dirt has been removed from the Magdalen's cloak.
Now, I may be good at restoring pictures, but to my endless shame there is one thing I can not restore:-
Yes, these are close-up details of my attempt at pancakes!!! I hate "pancake day", it fills me with angst. I can cook cakes, scones, biscuits (ie cookies, to my overseas readership - if you're reading, Alexa!), and a few savoury dishes well, but I NEVER succeed with pancakes. What did I do so wrong this year? I used self raising flour (at least, I think that's what went wrong). My lovely son was very forgiving, and didn't mind that I gave up and chucked them all in the compost. Still, the replacement pudding was eaten so fast that there was no time to take a photo - shop-made meringues, with cream and tinned pears. (Well, it all needed eating up!).
Bye Bye......
