As we all regain consciousness from our Pancake Day food comas the slow realisation will dawn on us that we’re now in Lent.
Now, hard as it will be for people who know me to believe, I’m not exactly the most religious of people. In fact that’s probably an understatement, but bear with me. For better or for worse (I’ll let you decide which) Lent has found its way into popular, contemporary society. Look around your office/lecture theatre/classroom and I bet there’s at least one person who’s giving up chocolate, crisps, biscuits or booze this year. Well, quite frankly, I don’t see the point. It’s not that I lack the will power (I can be VERY determined [read: stubborn] if I wish to be), I just fail to see the point in giving something up for the sake of giving it up. As my Grandpa used to say, “everything is good for you in moderation”.
This is not a new problem for me – I even went as far as calling it a Pointless Charade last year [EDIT: having just reread this myself I am fully aware that although intended as humorous it mainly makes me look like a bit pompous, but ultimately I feel I had a (poorly articulated) point] – it comes around every year [EDIT: And the point for stating the obvious goes to...]. And whilst I know our modern ‘give something up’ version is a corruption of the original idea, I don’t think much of the genesis either. And that is why I do the opposite.
Call me a sell-out or a hypocrite, if you will, but surely taking up something new (even if ‘just for the sake of it’) is a much better idea? Last year it was running/walking every day, this year it shall be blog-based. For each day of Lent (today until Easter Sunday) I will take and post a photo here on the blog. Simple(s).
I’m going to put a few wriggle-room clauses in this for a few plain and simple reasons: 1) photos will (after today) be a day or two behind, for the plain and simple reason that my blog tends to work best if updated during the day, when I am at work. 2) I’m choosing to do this just as life is getting a little hectic (again) and so some days it may just be impossible to get a photo, so there are a few stock photos of generic Edinburgh scenery ready to fill the gaps (or I’ll take two the day before). and 3) I can already tell you that 3 days will have to be sorted out well in advance because I will be out of town and internet signal.
So here’s to the start of Forty Days of Photos!
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