Well I’m grumpy because each year for Lent I give up sugar which turns me into a scary monster. Why do I do this? I’m not sure really. I don’t want it to be a holier-than-thou kind of thing. I am not holier than anyone and I recognise that I believe and am saved only through the grace of God and the sacrifice of my Lord Jesus. Nothing I can do by fasting ior giving up things brings me one step closer to heaven, because that is not down to me.

So why do I do it? It is nothing in the face of the suffering I can find just by looking at Zimbabwe, or South Sudan, or the Congo. It is too weak a gesture to pretend I am showing solidarity with those who starve or mourn.

No, I do it because in a little way – a way little enough for me, a spiritual chicken, to bear – it makes me just that little bit miserable. It makes me remember that my little loss is nothing compared to the sacrifice Jesus made for me. And it makes the excitement of Easter, of when Jesus burst back into a world changed forever, so much better.