Observant readers will know that I have been fasting for Orthodox Easter, to ensure my place in Heaven. Or at least give me enough bargaining power at the Pearly Gates to offset my membership of the National Secular Society. As keen students of Orthodox Easter will know, this involves not eating meat for the forty days of lent and then being essentially vegan for the last week. In the Greek Orthodox Church, "meat" means anything with a backbone - so I can eat shellfish, squid and such. I`ve been eating scampi as well, which I maintain is exoskeletal but I will admit does appear to have the beginnings of a backbone, if not one which would actually provide it with the ability to stand up in the particularly near future. If Saint Peter wants to argue about scampi and backbones at the Pearly Gates, then frankly the queue is evidently short enough to just let me in anyway. I can`t imagine Heaven is teeming these days. Anyway, I`m now into the last week of fasting, so I`m vegan. I managed to bollocks this up within the first hour of day one by absent-mindedly getting out of bed, wandering to the other end of the caravan and eating a Jaffa Cake, which appears to contain Milk Chocolate, and egg. I realised this while still masticating, but sadly couldn`t bring myself to spit it out. Since then I`ve been pretty good... the only time I may have muffed up slightly was when I ate a "vegi-burger" in a pub, which might rather have contained egg. Apparently they often do. It`s a lot harder being vegan than it is being vegi - in a lot of ways I`ve quite enjoyed being vegi and I think I`ll actually carry on doing it for certain meals. Indian food, for example, is often very nicely prepared except for the shitto meat they buy. We`ve all been at that stage halfway through our Chicken Bhuna to find the chewing action stopped short by... something... something quite hard, though a little maliable and definitely not a part of the chicken we were intending eating. Well, vegi indian food contains all the same herbs, spices and sauce but without the "hmm, is that a foot or a collar" moments. So I think I`ll carry on being vegi for indian takeaways. Indians themselves eat a lot of vegetables, so the ones you get aren`t the "bought three weeks ago" effort you get in pubs, but actually quite fresh and reasonably presentable. Anyway, on Sunday I get to eat meat again, which I have to say I`m quite looking forward to. We`ll be in the Lakes, hopefully with our awning erected, and hopefully with weather fine enough we can whip out our as-yet unused barbecue.