I’ve just returned from celebrating in Beckenham’s traditional Mardi Gras parade. I never want this wonderful night to end so I’m sitting here in my shiny silver bikini; sequinned pasties and glittery butterfly wings. I might just sleep in them and wake to Ash Wednesday gloom.

Shrove Tuesday is all about using up the lovely things in your pantry before the Lenten fast, isn’t it? When the offspring are here, they insist on pancakes and I always wonder why I never make them on any other day of the year. Oh how I love standing there wasting huge quantities of batter in my quest for  the perfect circular crepe.

The offspring are far-flung today so I made the chestnut blinis that we had for our Christmas Day starter. Well, it’s using up the vacuum packed chestnuts we had in our store cupboard. We also had some soup in our freezer made in order to avoid wasting one of the many beautiful and strange types of squash we receive in our weekly vegetable box. It helped use up the crème fraiche I’d had in the fridge since last week too. So definitely in the spirit of Shrove Tuesday then, even though I went out to buy the smoked salmon.

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