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!

Keeping busy with gifts.

Juliana and John, my sea glass friends from Scotland had sent me a lovely parcel back in February.

That generous gift included papers for card making, a cross stitch magazine, a beautiful watch,a cross stitch card kit, some threads, a seaglass turtle, a pair of beautiful frames, a Scottish recipe book, a handmade birthday card, a good luck charm and lots more.
Here I should show you some of the things I made with them.
I made Shepherd's pie and it was delicious!

I stitched the card kit into a coaster using an empty coaster I had from another project. I am going to send this away as a gift to someone special soon.

I also stitched a little Scottish thistle fridge magnet kit they had sent me in a previous parcel.

The coaster took some time to be made as there were lots of tiny stitches but the fridge magnet was very quick. I am keeping it as it reminds me of my great Scottish friends who once again preferred Greece for their holidays!
 I also stitched a pattern from the magazine using the threads in the parcel which I will show you later when it is framed. So my friends Juliana and John as you can see I have used  and liked your gifts very very much! Thank you once again!

First weekend of June.

Have a great month everyone!
I promised, didn't I ? There are going to be lots of blogposts till the end of June, till I go to the beach house for my summer holidays that is. I have to tell you everything that has been going on the last couple of months and I haven't yet.
Anyway thanks to all those who commented on my previous post! So I haven't changed much since my teenage years!Oh well! That's really sweet of you!
Also I would like to say that I had been thinking of all my British pals since they were celebrating the jubillee. I am sure you all had a great time up there in Britain.
Here's what I did this weekend.
We went to the beach house on Saturday. Our main aim was to clean and prepare it for summer. We achieved most of our goals, sweeping and washing the floors, taking the matresses out to the sun, doing the laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, the shutters, the patio and deck, doing some of the gardening. Of course there are still things to be done. I managed to go and swim once on Sunday at noon just a little while before my brother and his family came for a small barbeque lunch.
Boy the sea was....cold!!!!!!Brrrrrr!
And a little bit of sea glass was collected on Saturday evening!
That's all. Not much else was done. Of course we had our evening chatting with our friends Anna and Jim there, coffee and a beer. A long summer is awaiting ahead of us. I don't know if it will be a good one with all the political and financial things happening here. As this is our 8th summer there we plan to enjoy it as much as we can because we don't know for how long we will manage to keep this house! It's totally on a bank loan so ....
Anyway now a couple of pics for you!
My dear son's yellow rose bush bloomed again! It was a mother's day gift some years ago.

 And some of the chrysanthemums started blooming too.These were the first plants we plants.And they bloom every year.

 Queen Ann's lace looks so beautiful!

 And my flox is blooming too.This was last summer's addition to the garden and it is so nice and delicate.

 And the little pomegranate tree that got planted by itself  has lots of beautiful flowers on it.

 I hope we will get our own pomegranates this year.

 The dandellions were huge.

 Can you spot the four aeroplanes in the sky above the sunset?

 A little bit of sea glass.

 And the gifts my sis brought from her trip to Rome. T-shirts for the guys and the stuff I like, viewcards, the Colliseum, some farfalle in the colours of the Italian flag( I really don't know if I should cook them or keep them!), and my favourite Limoncello drink! Thanks sis!

Tomorrow we are going back to school! Two more weeks of lessons and an extra week for administartion work and off we go, I am looking forward to it!
By the way for those of you who love looking and reading at blogs, my bloglist has become bigger. I have added some more blogs I have been reading lately, so go ahead and visit them too.

Volos-Pelion 32 years ago.

The first time I ever went to Volos and Pelion Mount was when I was 14 years old at the third grade of my High School. It was the end of the year day trip in April 1980!
I had loved it!
The only four photos I have from that trip I scanned and am showing them to you along with a photo of me at the sea front of Volos on this recent trip! Have I changed that much? Why can't I see it?
At Makrinitsa(careful don't fall over!)

 At Makrinitsa with Fani my classmate and friend at the time. I haven't seen her ever since!

 At Portaria all students eating together!We were only girls.

 At Portaria gathering flowers and running to catch our bus!

In Volos on this trip!Haven't changed my hairstyle or clothing style for ages!LOL!

Weekend to Volos-Pelion Part F (last)

Have a nice month friends!
I really can't believe we are already in June! This has been such a difficult and disappointing winter and spring and now we are in summer already?
Yesterday I started doing my tax papers and realised I have to pay so much on taxes that I really don't know where I will find the money to do so!
On the other hand I am so in love with my experiences in Volos and Pelion that I really don't want to write on anything else! Today is the last part though!
After that I will be silent for a couple of days as I will be at my summer house cleaning it and preparing it for summer and therefore I won't have Internet access and then I will come back to blog about lots and lots of things I haven't told you the last couple of months! That's a promise I hope I will keep.
There will be small blogposts daily all the first fortnight of June so that I manage to cover all the previous months and whatever has happened the last weeks and of course the rest of the Romania trip!
Now about Volos and Pelion.
After the train trip we arrived at Milies and started walking upwards towards the village square. It was so beautiful walking amidst a grren paradise where all houses were hidden in the shadows of the green bushes and trees.

 There were cherry trees too.

 And little streams everywhere.

 And beautiful houses.

When we arrived at the square we saw the church of Taxiarhes.

There was a christening there at the time and there was going to be a prty for the christened twins in the square.

 The decorations for the christening were really beautiful.

We had to wait till the christening was over to go inside the church. So we enjoyed some cold local fizzy drinks. Epsa lemonade is my favourite.

When the christening was over we were allowed to enter the church and we followed an old man who guided us to the secrets of this church which has excellent acoustics and an amazing gallery of fresco icon paintings on the walls. The roof from the outside looks flat but from the inside there are twelve semicircular vaults.

After the tour we had lunch at the square. One of the local dishes is spentzofai which is sausages with sweet peppers. Delicious!

Then we went to our bus to take us home.

On the way home we stopped at the seaside village of Agria for coffee.

 I am still not really sure if this was a real plant or not. I smellt it, I touched it, it looked so beautiful and I thought it was plastic, but the truth is that it was real,but I don't know what it was.

Unfortunately there was a promenade not a beach so I could not collect sea glass. That's the only thing missing from this lovely trip!
Thank you for travelling with me! I hope you enjoyed it!