Pancake Tuesday

The idea was that you ate all the things you weren't going to for the time of Lent.    Including lots of fat  (Mardi Gras!).   Then you popped along to make your confession, to be shriven.   (Shrove Tuesday.)   Then you settled down to forty days of repentance and amendment of life.  The "forty days" is a common time frame in the Bible.   But if you count from now through to Maundy Thursday you'll find it's a few more than forty days.

There are a lot of different traditions quoted to explain that - the most common is that Sundays aren't counted because every Sunday is a little Easter.