DATE: Shrove Tuesday, 1786 Feast of Saint Wulfram WEATHER: Grey OUTLOOK: Bright

Saint Wulfram was much admired for his rigorous regime of self mortification.
    He was much given to starvation, prostration, the wearing of chain mail and frequent immersions in cold water. Sounds like school to me, without the flagellation.
    The point is that school puts one through hell for a few years when life would probably be hell anyway but that brief experience prepares one for the rest of one’s life, and one is sustained, whilst under the rod, by the thought of how nice it will be when it stops. The same could be said of Lent, of course, by those who keep the fast.
    I have decided this year, to forgo foreign snuff for forty days and forty nights; a sacrifice not to be sneezed at.
    A keen young member of the Stonic Lodge suggested that we might consider a novel method of procuring funds for us to distribute to worthy causes. He hit upon the idea of a subsidised perambulation. Each participating member would elect to cover a measured course, on foot, passing though various control points, having persuaded sundry friends, relatives, acquaintances and colleagues to support him in his endeavour at a rate of so much per mile, the total circuit being ten miles. Mrs. Lightfoote offered sixpence a mile without equivocation or mental reservation of any kind, on the grounds that it was worth five shillings of anybody’s money to be rid of me for a full day.
    I decided to embark on a period of preparation, having not walked much above a mile, in one go, in decades. I consulted a plan of our great city and noted points at various distances where I knew that premises were situated where I might obtain refreshment before starting back. My first objective was the Turk’s Head in Old Compton Street, a gentle, mile-and-a-half round trip. I got there in less than forty minutes and celebrated with two quarts of excellent porter, a dozen oysters and a couple of slices of quite magnificent game pie.
    The return trip proved far harder work for some reason. I suspect that the gradient is deceptive. The following day I made it, scarce breaking sweat, to the Maypole in the Strand – a good step.
    The ale there is quite spectacular and, as luck would have it, the dish of the day was Scotch collops. I topped off half a dozen with a bumper of Malmsey and stepped out into the road feeling fully fortified. Sadly, this effect had worn off by the time I reached Bow Street and I had to pay a boy to run back to the Strand to get a cab to come for me. This was depressing. I couldn’t work out what was wrong. I was actually considering withdrawing from the event, despite the torrent of connubial abuse that this would call forth, when I received assistance from an unexpected source.
    Mrs. Lightfoote is wont to purchase scarves and the like, woven, she claims, from the wool of mountain goats, from a sub continental gentleman called Gupta.
    I had never met Gupta previously, but he seemed to recognise me as I clambered down from the cab and staggered up to my front door. He had been attempting to gain entry for some time; Mrs. Lightfoote must have been unavoidably detained at Messrs. Fortnum & Mason’s excellent emporium. Gupta, who was attired most elegantly, greeted me like a brother. When he shook my hand, I realised that he was!
    I’d never come across a Hindoo mason before and was eager to get to know him better.
    My fatigue evaporated as we sat and talked. He would take only tea, whereas I felt that the occasion called for a celebratory bottle of champagne. I explained what I’d been doing to Gupta and he let me in on a secret.
    ‘Eating while sitting makes you fat. Eating while standing makes you strong…’
    I’d always been told that eating while standing was bad for one, but I had to concede that four decades plus of sedentary consumption did seem to have had an adverse effect on the Lightfoote waistline. Gupta assured me that the mistake that I had been making was to stop for sustenance rather than taking it on the hoof, as it were. ‘Masonically speaking,’ he informed me, in lilting tones, ‘labour and refreshment are separate entities, but there are circumstances in which it is advisable to combine the two.’
    And so it proved. At the hour appointed I sallied forth, stepping off in the customary manner, and not pausing until I reached the halfway house. Five miles, meandering with a mazy motion! The turning point was the Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens; here I snatched up an apple and an orange, swallowed a pint of foaming ale and was on my way back to Covent Garden hardly having broken step. On the return journey I reached the finish feeling fitter than when I’d started.
    I had raised over twenty pounds for the charities. The Stonic brethren were proud of me, Gupta was proud of me, but my wife was proudest of all.
    She was quite amazed at my achievement. Mind you, she’d been amazed at my achievement for some time previously, possibly due to the bedside reading matter that Gupta had so thoughtfully provided.
    As the wise man said, ‘A Sutra a day keeps the doctor away.’