Lent

I have been reflecting since Wednesday on Lent--I, too, (for those of you who come from Jean's blog) give up alcohol--in my case wine. I find it very hard to say why I give up anything--but much easier to talk about the missing wine, pictured on the right.
I really like wine--the way it smells and tastes, the way it makes good food even better when well matched. In our family, both nuclear and extended, wine plays a large part in wonderful evenings of sitting and talking. I claim Rachel and her husband Ed are bad influences because I drink so much when with them--but they claim I am a bad influence on them so perhaps it is just that we all like to sit and talk.

I have attempted the Lenten discipline of abstinence from wine for a number of years now, with varying success--mostly I slip once or twice (dinner parties, as you might guess, are my great weakness); one year I abandoned the effort altogether and rarely I manage the whole 40 days.
But in this family Rachel and Ed give up wine and Jean gives up cider and Roger gives up wine and beer so the discipline, in a virtual sense, also becomes a family event. It's hard to say just why that helps me--I usually see none of these people other than Roger during Lent--but it does.

So I thought by putting it in writing I would strengthen myself even more. I'll try to check in on progress every week or two.