Hairy but true

Apologies for the delay since my last post - It took time to get over the shock of Valentine's.
This has in turn impeded on my productivity. Not sure if anyone else finds this, but I find sometimes I can seem to be doing lots of things yet achieve nothing and at others, I seem to be chilling out and lying back and things just drop into place.
Whilst I wish I was about to say that things were currently the latter, they are unfortunately the former and simple things are taking me far longer than I have. I do not want to be a grumpy old man (especially at only36), but ...
Whilst moaning, I am feeling slightly guilty that another Shrove Tuesday has past and I have once again not given something up for lent. My dad always used to give up alcohol and I remember being really impressed by this. I also remember, whenever I have previously giving something up, that it was a really cleansing experience. Valuing what we have by not having it is a strangely compelling activity and one which is good for all to practise. I was talking about this with a colleague only yesterday - she agreed and marked the occasion with many pancakes and a vow to give up all chocolate and cakes for 40 days. Had I gone out and had a few beers and pancakes to prepare myself for the fast, then I too could have done what dad did for many years. As I did not, next year I will have to try again. Perhaps being a dad is part of the drive to show your child that we cannot have what we want when we want it and that there is a value in going without.
Changing tack - I heard this week of a group of people from Taiwan who tried to lift an elephant with human hair! Yes they wove loads of human hair together and made some type of winch to lift an 3 tonne elephant. This consisted of over 1.6 million human hairs and cost over £4000 to do!