Thessaloniki one more time

Well, this is my last visit to Thessaloniki, at least to the appartment we had rented for our sons who do their studies here. Both of them are finishing this year and I am here to pack up a few of their belongings to send  back home. No more excuses for a little break from island life and spending some time with my bloggerfriend Ariadne. I was lucky enough this time to see her husband Themis in action with his shadow puppet performance. Karagkiozis is a well known and well loved  figure in the traditional shadow puppet theatre. The play was the famous "The emperor's clothes" adapted into "The sultan's clothes". It was held in a most beautiful neoclassical building that houses a kindergarten.

The new generation of puppeteers, helping Themis.

In the afternoon we visited the antique market. Although there were many beautiful items and I was very tempted, I managed not to buy anything. I am focussing on decluttering, not an easy thing for me.

Here are some of the stalls of the market. The photos I grabbed from their facebook page

Independance day

Today is Independance day which is traditionally celebrated with a parade. 

And as is tradition there is also a special dish for this day: fried salted cod with garlic sauce which we enjoyed for lunch.

I also learned something new today. Another one of the many superstitious "advices" of my mother in law:
"On this day you must never bring anything green in the house. If you do, your house will fill with ants in the summer".
Her list of advices is long, very long. They are very old and most of them are also very peculiar. But I love her and take the advices with a pinch of salt. Maybe I shall write a post about some of the advices, I am sure they will make you smile.

Are you superstitious about something?

Playing with fire

Such a glorious day today with a lot of sun and finally a smell of spring in the air. I spent all day working in the garden and cleared up lots of woodcuttings that had been drying for a while. I don't usually light a bonfire on the beach but there was so much, it would be impossible to dispose it in another way. It wasn't even so easy to get a good fire going but eventually it started burning and took care of all the old cuttings.

It looks a bit messy, but  after everything was burnt I cleaned it up nicely.

Daisies are enjoying the sun too

And to top of a perfect day, I had my first swim this year. The watertemperature was 16 degrees, not too cold.

That was more than enough exercise for one day so now I shall put my feet up, have a nice herbal tea and relax.


How was your Sunday?

"Clean Monday"

Yesterday was the traditional "Clean Monday", the end of the carnivalperiod and the beginning of the fasting period before Easter.

Kite flying and special dishes mark this day.

On our festive table were amongst others the following dishes:

Taramosalata

Sea urchins

Fouskes (I am not sure of the english name of this seafruit)

Enjoyed with some tsipouro

Unfortunately the weather was not very springlike.
And I am so much looking forward to spring. The best time of the year for me.

Once again the Green Fox

At the risk of getting boring about this subject, but it is something I am very passionate about, I just want to share the brandnew campaign we just launched. It is all about getting a truck for our Foxes to be able to collect all those bottle the coming summer season. 

The old car was donated to us and served us well but sadly is beyond repair and has been laid to rest.

With this campaign we hope to collect the necessary cash for another truck. My (blog) friend Ariadne was the first to pledge a great donation and I want to thank her so much for this!

I just returned from another visit to my boys in Thessaloniki and had the opportunity again to spend some lovely time with Ariadne. At he moment I am with my friend Alexandra in Volos and probably returning home tomorrow.

The Green Fox birthday party

Last saturday we celebrated the 2nd birthday of our Green Fox. A celebration in Greek style with lots of food, wine and dancing to the live music. We had a busy time preparing, that was one of the reasons I had disappeared again from blogland, but it was worth all the work and effort.

We managed to raise some well needed cash for our project. Thanks to all the volunteers and other friends of the Green Fox who helped us in organizing this special night.

A beautiful birthdaycake made by one of our members.

The first band that came and played for us: "Groom Therapy"

The second and more traditional band with an amazing bouzouki!

Sirtaki

After all the guests left, we had our own little "after"party with of course : dancing on the table!

Happy birthday Green Fox and many more years of plastic bottle collecting!

Crochet roll

Today  is episode 6 of the crochetroll from Wieke van Keulen.

I started it with a nice blue wool and crochethook 4,5 but unfortunately I had only one ball of wool. I knew it wasn't going to be enough and the wool is not available on the island....so why did I start it with this wool?

Probably just because I can do the whole thing again with another wool. So, last week I started all over with another yarn I have in my stash. Thinner this time so I crochet with crochet hook 2,5 and it is also not my favourite colour but I have a few more skeins of this one so I hope there will be enough although it looks like Wieke has a lot of patterns for us so I don't know how fas I will get with this wool. We'll see. It is fun to do and gives me some  practice at the same time.

Wishing you a good week!