I have seen a few decades of Lent now and it can be hard to think of something fresh. So, I tried YouTube for inspiration. Nothing.

Then, a talking book, and I thought I had something, but it turned out nothing. 

That’s when I did what we should all do when writer’s block strikes - get up and go for a walk, or better still, go and do something genuinely useful. Then, when you finally sit down to write, you will feel like you have already achieved something. Give it a try; it’s like magic.

Luckily, I had been putting a job off. The shower drain has been backing up for the last couple of days. Each time the shower ran, you got that impending sense of doom that you would be mopping up if you did not hurry up. I had tried dismantling the shower drain and strainer, but it was surprisingly clean, meaning I needed the nuclear solution.

It goes by a few names, but my favourite drain-cleaning tool is the kinetic gun. Let’s be honest: if you are cleaning drains, the bar for excitement is pretty low. This kinetic gun has served me well for years. Inside that drum is just over 4m of steel coil (now quite rusty and disgusting, but still very effective). It has saved me hundreds of plumbing bill dollars.

Recently, I got all four metres down the shower drain. It took some doing, but I got there. Once it is in play, you have to do a lot of shoving and twisting of the coil to gather up as much ‘material’ as possible.

Once you think you’ve done the job, you need to run the shower, and hopefully, everything will slip right out the other end, never to be seen again. What’s useful is that the out pipe is just under the bathroom window, so if you stand in the bath, you can almost see the progress, especially if you remove the cover, which I had not done. So I went outside to get a proper look.

And let me tell you, my timing was impeccable. I arrived to remove the cover and get my head in the zone before the blockage. Ooh man.

It was memorable, but not in a good way. It was lazy and resistant - it did not want to leave.

Then, suddenly, it was gone, and the clear running water streamed out like a mighty cataract.

And that - I thought - is Lent.

Bear with me.

In our lives, we are exposed to many different types of rubbish. We might see it on the TV and the internet, or we might experience it first-hand. It might be crazy ideas, hurtful words, or bad choices. It could be grief or regret that we can’t shake. Sadly, much of the negative stuff we experience tend to stick to us, and those nasty, sticky things stick to each other. Then, they can coalesce to form a blockage like a clog in a drain. When that happens, everything can bank up on top of it.

Lent invites us to move the clog along, acknowledge the buildup of negative feelings or experiences, and put our kinetic gun to work. If you know your kinetic gun, you should use it. If you are smart, you will use it regularly so you never clog up.

Whatever you do, do something to shift the clog and let the sweet water refresh you. Then, keep doing it and let that sense of impending doom drain away.