Part of the difficulty of giving up meat is health-based - I've had problems with anemia in the past, and don't much enjoy taking iron tablets if I don't have to. I managed to give up caffeine a few years in a row, until the year I changed degrees and fell asleep in class two weeks into Lent (it was an Old Testament class taught by a famously boring lecturer, but still. Not good).
Laughed hard at the stories about your brothers. As for exceptions on feast days - my sister's 21st birthday party this year was the first Saturday in Lent, with a big sit-down dinner held in the church hall. The vicar joked about it being ok since the party started after sundown, making it 'the Sabbath' so people wouldn't feel bad about relaxing their Lenten fast. Though, being Anglicans, most people a) only give up small things b) didn't get the joke about feast days. I did allow myself to eat a piece of chocolate cake, though.
I hope you like the book. They have been on my to-read list for ages - my two main genres are historicals and fantasy novels, so a story with dragons AND Napoleonic spies really tickles my fancy.
Laughed hard at the stories about your brothers. As for exceptions on feast days - my sister's 21st birthday party this year was the first Saturday in Lent, with a big sit-down dinner held in the church hall. The vicar joked about it being ok since the party started after sundown, making it 'the Sabbath' so people wouldn't feel bad about relaxing their Lenten fast. Though, being Anglicans, most people a) only give up small things b) didn't get the joke about feast days. I did allow myself to eat a piece of chocolate cake, though.
I hope you like the book. They have been on my to-read list for ages - my two main genres are historicals and fantasy novels, so a story with dragons AND Napoleonic spies really tickles my fancy.