Clean Monday

3 March is "Clean Monday" (Καθαρά Δευτέρα) in Greece and Cyprus.
"...it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food, a special kind of azyme bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana" (Greek: λαγάνα) and the widespread custom of flying kites, as it symbolises "trying to reach the Divine"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Monday
Yes, it's the first flickering of Lent, which in the West begins on Ash Wednesday (5 March) and runs to Maundy Thursday (17 April).
But before that we have Pre-Lent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Lent
whose concluding three-day festival is called "Carnival" or "Shrovetide":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival
"The word is said to come from the Late Latin expression carne levare, which means "remove meat"; a folk etymology derives it from carne vale, "farewell to meat"."
Oops. I believed the folk etymology for most of my life.
My public-holiday calendar gives 3-4 March as Carnival in Argentina and Brazil.
But there's also Mardi Gras ("Greasy Tuesday") or Shrove Tuesday
(4 March) a big celebration in New Orleans and elsewhere, though not a national holiday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras
Enough. I'm going to start fasting.