Welcome to Tatting Tea Tuesday. Remember to take a little time for yourself, make yourself a cup of tea and pick up a shuttle even for a few minutes. A little chocolate might be good, too.
February is the month we celebrate Valentine's Day, usually with hearts and pretty cards. This year it also has Shrove Tuesday, the last day before the beginning of Lent.
In Liberal, Kansas they also call this day Pancake Day, and have a four day celebration that includes a pancake race with the women of Olney, England. Woman in both towns compete wearing a head scarf and apron and carry a skillet with a pancake in it. They race over a curving 415 yard (about 380 meter) course and must flip a pancake once before they start and once after they cross the finish line to show they still have the pancake. The woman of Olney have been running this race since 1455. The woman of Liberal having been doing this since 1950 when the local Jaycee president saw something about the Olney race in a publication. He contacted the town of Olney and asked if they would like to race again the woman of Liberal and they have been doing it ever since.
The story goes that it started when a woman was busy making pancakes to use up cooking fats, which are forbidden during Lent, when she heard the church bells calling everyone to service. Grabbing her headscarf, which was required in church, and still with with apron on and pan and cake in hand, ran for the church. In the following years other woman took to doing this as well, making it a race to see who could get to the church the fastest.
This year's race was won by a woman in Liberal with a time of 63 seconds, beating the winner of the Olney race by 4 seconds.
Liberal, Kansas is a little more than 300 miles (485 kilometers) west and south of Wichita, Kansas and about the same distance south and east of Colorado Springs, Colorado (it's pretty much in the middle of no-where). Olney is almost 60 miles (93 kilometers) north of London.
If you'd like to see a little more about this race you can see an older website from last year here and a current one here.
I didn't have time for pancakes today, but it does sound good!