HARDEN UP / LOOSEN UP

The period of Lent has represented a period of collective deprivation in Quebec; hence the existence of the following two Quebecisms: hardening up then loosening up. The first brings us back to a period when we must inevitably get used to the idea of around forty deprivations approaching. The other, quite the opposite, describes to us later the abundance felt when the window of which we had temporarily been deprived reopens…