Day 17 Good Friday

Ever wondered why the day Christians celebrate the whipping, beating crucifixion and stabbing of Jesus, is called ‘Good Friday?’ I was going to make it a quiz question but decided that the small band of blog readers probably would say ‘Who cares!’ Well, the answer is that ‘good’ comes from the antiquated meaning for holy. So, it could be ‘Holy Friday” just like we have ‘Holy Wednesday’ for last Wednesday. Now isn’t all that just fascinating?

Second religious question: Why do (proper, practising) Catholics not eat meat on Good Friday? The tradition stems from the Catholic custom to not eat warm-blooded animals on Fridays, to acknowledge and do penance for the death of Jesus. But I reckon it’s a bit like modern Santa and Mothers’ Day. It was an invention of a very clever fishmonger. Probably Con the Greek. We used to look forward to Friday nights as kids, whoopie, fish n chips, sometimes even a chicko roll, potato cake or dim sim. We never saw scallops or prawns back in the day and only poofs put vinegar on their chips.

So to celebrate Good Friday, I did my penance. First thing in the morning, I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom. Hot water and detergent, Gumption and Spray n Wipe, dishwasher steaming and mop and bucket flying. It looks a bit better. And joy of joys, while cleaning I found the five pre made cocktails in nice little bottles that Joanne gave me for my birthday. Into the fridge they went. I think I will have them before and during trivia tonight. Might help me with the questions.

I think we are going out on bicycle patrol now, so I shall report on our return. The patrol to the south was very quiet, with a few walkers and couple of cyclists but like Memphis the time we were there with Tas – a ghost town. Now, there was a naughty backpacker sunbathing practically naked as they tend to do here, but only one, not scores of them as in past days. There were a couple of naughty older folk having lunch on the picnic tables and some homeless people in a state of confusion. On the return leg, the scantily clad backpacker was gone. Fined $1300, I hope.

After refreshing ourselves, as it is 29C here today, we (read Lady P) decided she needed a mango daiquiri. Luckily for her, there was lots of frozen mango. Sorry Lucy! Flashy got down on his knees to look into the back of the cupboard and found the white rum and Cointreau, so a daiquiri was born.

Lady P and Andrew are in earnest discussion about the making of sourdough bread, as his starter is rumbling along nicely. She has just taken ours out to make the pizza base for tonight’s trivia. How decadent eh, sourdough pizza base? Plus, we are going all out San Fran style, with a white pizza. Leek and velouté sauce with prawns, fish and calamari. I think a nice rose might be appropriate.

I broke the rule (in isolation, no alcohol before 5 pm) today and had a white wine with my curried chicken for lunch. I think I will amend the rule to an exemption for religious days. There are at least 45 days in the catholic church that are holy days - at least one each month, so, I think it’s a good rule.