A fun filled weekend!

The last weekend of May was exceptionally adventurous and filled with experiences.
Sometimes weekends are empty and I try to fill them up and on the contrary they end up filled with chores and schoolwork.
But the last weekend of May had so many things to do. I loved it!
On Friday afternoon hubby and I were chasing the rain all along the road to Stagira, a small mountainous village of Chalkidiki where a friend, an old fellow school teacher, had invited us for a shadow puppet theatre performance.Stagira is the birthplace of Aristotle the philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
It was funny how the rain was all around us and we managed to avoid it bit by bit, or should I say drop by drop.

 The area is so green and lush with little old houses. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to take pics of the village.

 The rain hovered over the school where we were getting ready to perform.

But it did not rain afterall.
On the return home we stopped at another small village called Agios Prodromos and bought some of their famous souvlaki. They were delicious.
Saturday morning it was raining hard but it was our only chance to visit the 9th International Book Fair of Thessaloniki. I go there every year and love seeing all the new books and attending exhibitions and activities.
This year there was a big stand for children to get to know Egypt, the Pyramids and the mummies.

 Serbia was the honoured country but I did not have time to attend Emir Kusturica's speech.
I collected a few leaflets and things.

In the evening we attended my friend Stathis' christening of his younger daughter.Again it was raining hard. Here are the boubounieres,sweet gifts for the guests, ladybugs filled with sugared almonds.

And here are the two very special pics I stitched for both my friend's daughters.

 I got them from an old issue of CrossStitcher.

 They were to be made into one frame and I made two and framed them with IKEA frames.

After the christening  the teacher friends who were at the christening we had coffee all together. It was fun especially when suddenly the administration manager of my area (our big boss) appeared and had coffee with us.
We returned home just in time for the Eurovision Song Contest. I didn't really like any of the songs, not even the Greek one, but I think the Swedish, the Serbian, the Albanian and the FYROM song were better than the rest. I love it when countries sing in their mother tongue and not in English.

Sunday the 27th was my son's birthday.
We had a small cherry chocolate cake from our favourite pastry shop.

And here is my gift to my son!A T-shirt of his choice! Many happy returns love!

On Sunday morning it was also the first antique flea market in my city. And it was very near our house.Of course we attended. Luckily the weather obliged and it was sunny. There were very few people selling things but quite a lot looking but not buying as things were quite expensive but I really managed to get a couple of things I liked in very good prices.
I had to ask before taking photos but everyone was kind enough to allow. Still I didn't take too many close ups.
I loved looking at things that we had as children or my parents used to have.

 We grabbed the shadow puppet figure as soon as we heard the price.It was only 3 euros for a 1979 puppet. The seller probably did not know its value.

 One seller had coins, stamps and postcards and we bought the series of shadow puppet stamps.

 I loved looking at all the porcelain.

 And I adored those embroidered tablecloths from Skyros island but they were more than 300 euros each!

 When I saw the old maps I remembered the ones I saved from the clearing of my school.

 I remembered an old lamp with such a glass on top at my childhood house. It probably broke at some point.

 This is the antique second -hand seller whose shop I have been to a couple of times.

 I liked those colourful glasses.

Here is what we bought.

The cross stitched and embroidery pieces were very cheap so I could afford them. I was so sorry that someone had spent hours making them and they ended up in a bundle sold cheaply.
I washed and ironed them at home and am looking forward to decorating them in my flat.

 The black and red ones are traditional Greek designs.

 The white one has some little birds on the flowers. The birds are incomplete on the last of the flowers. How amazing is this? Probably the thread was over or the stitcher forgot to stitch them!!!!!

So you can see why I loved that last weekend of May!