Happy Easter!

The Greek Orthodox celebrate Easter today! I am sending all those who do my best wishes; and to all those who celebrated last week I hope you had a great time!
Also I welcome some new followers and hope those who still read me are enjoying it!
As you have noticed I don't write as often as I used to. I realised it was stressful for me to blog every day so I decided to do it only when I feel like it or when I have something to say!
Lisa and others made a comment earlier that last year I put so many spring flowery photos and found beauty around me. The truth is that I was in a better mood at this time last year and due to the situation in Greece I am rather down. The weather hasn't helped much either and we still haven't got too many flowers around. Still there are things to be grateful for and I assure you I am.

 Easter eggs from Romania.(Yes I was there a couple of days ago, posts will follow!)

 Handmade (by hubby) Easter candle with Karaghiozis shadow puppet for my Godson.

 Chocolate Easter bunnies and Steaua Bucarest chocolate for my Godson brought from Romania.

 My Godson Elias and me when we visited them for Easter.

 Lovely lilacs, Easter tsoureki(sweet) and bunny filled with Easter eggs from my best friend Gia, mum of my Godson.

 Easter eggs.

 Lilacs smell wonderful.

 Easter tsoureki.

 Our Easter candles bought from charity.

The cake I made for my brother's family for Easter. Caramelized hazelnut chocolate cake.
This post will be edited later when we have eaten it!!!!!!

........

The Easter dinner at my brother's was excellent.
Here are a couple of more snaps.

 Lilacs and beautiful handmade sequined eggs made by my sister-in-law's cousins!

 My sister painted beautiful red eggs. I didn't paint any eggs this year.

 Beautiful flowers in their balcony. My brother has better green fingers than me!

A day trip to Polygyros.

The Drama Club team was again invited to perform for the Pensioner teachers, this time in Polygyros Chalkidiki, so of we went at 6.30 in the morning. It was a lovely sunny day, totally different from today's rainy day.
We performed and then had coffee and lunch. In fact we returned late in the afternoon.We had fun!
Here are  a couple of photos.
Polygyros has got lovely old houses.

 Our great chocolate at the cafe.

 We had lunch here at this very beautiful restaurant called Ayoneri.

As I will be away for some time I'd like to wish you all a very happy Easter!

Yeni Cami, New Mosque

That's a very old mosque turned into an art gallery in my neighbourhood.
There is a printing-engraving exhibition there these days and we just popped in to see it the other day.
 Her name is Ariadne.

 We also included by permit a rare walk around this magnificent building while spring has started visiting it.

Shadows and petals.

 Sundial.

Independence Day

The 25th of March is Independence Day in Greece. Back in 1821 the Greeks fought against the Turks and after 400 years of being in slavery they became free.
Greece is in a very bad state right now. People don't feel free at all. They are dependent on loans and credit cards, they owe the banks and the whole country owes to big banks and the Europeans who lent money to small Greece just in order to have it under financial and political control eventually.
Under the circumstances the 25th March parades were expected to be rather demonstrations and for that reason the Government held the people away from the great parade in Athens by using thousands of policemen. The parade took place with no demonstrations and no spectators and of course no flying yoghurts or sour orange throwing!(The Municipality had collected all the sour oranges from the trees around the politicians stand so that they are not used against them).
In other towns and cities of Greece as there was not so much police force there were demonstrations but the media did not care enough to show them on TV. The only reliable way to get the news today is blogland.
Anyway wanting to avoid all kinds of mischief we left the city on Sunday morning for our summer house. We hadn't been there for such a long time. Paying the loan for it but having no money for expensive gas to drive there is quite an irony.
Nature paid back for our sad moods.

 Dying....

 or budding....

 or blooming.....

 ...nature was beautiful.
We looked at the sea, walked the beach with not much sea glass finding unfortunately, we admired some blooming trees, took lots of photos and ate the traditional dish for the day cod fish with ayoli.

 We met dear dog friends.

It was a short sunny break in our dark lives.

Nikos Kazantzakis Kapetan Mihalis

The first book I read this year was Nikos Kazantzakis' Freedom and Death (Original title Kapetan Mihalis). I adored it. Fierce Captain Michael in Crete of 1889 swears not to laugh until Crete is free from the Turks. A man loyal to his beliefs ends up to fight all by himself against the enemy.

The reason I read it was because with the Drama team we had an invitation by the
International Nikos Kazantzakis Friends Company  to present the book. That took place on the 21st March, on the International Poetry Day.
We were again packed and every one enjoyed our presentation and the tsikoudia they tasted afterwards along with some great Cretan live music.

 Some of the audience with the Drama Club team.

Mihalis Mantziris and the Creatn Lyra

 Creatn Laouto

 Hubby and I waiting to appear dressed in black.

Hubby with a former student of his, Matina Noutsou, who sang at the presentation.

Stavros Vourvahis and Mihalis Mantziris rehearsing some lovely Cretan Music.