CHRIS RUNDLE

THIS WEEK CHRIS LOOKS AT LENT, A TIME WHEN A BIT OF SELF-DENIAL FOR FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS WAS REGARDED AS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

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FIXED to the wall above the table where I sit writing this is a small cupboard. Nothing fancy: a plain, 19th-century stripped pine cupboard bearing evidence suggesting it was once painted white.

In a previous habitation it served us for years as a bathroom cupboard. Then came a house move, a bathroom with no suitable space to hang a wall cupboard - and a dramatic change of role.

It became a spice cupboard - though it took many long months for the lingering fragrance of lavender, rose and jasmine to be supplanted by the notes of cinnamon, cloves and allspice, now deeply infused into the wood.

But the point is this: a few centuries back this cupboard would have been firmly secured in a few days' time. Double locked, if not chained, with the keys secreted away in a location known only to the mistress of the house. Because next Wednesday sees the start of Lent: a period of abstinence during which anything as fancy as a spiced biscuit would have been off the menu on religious grounds.