Books

Today's prompt in Our Beautiful World is 

books

and was chosen by dear Ros of Mikey's mum.

This year I have taken again the challenge at So little Sleeping and so much reading and am planning to read 26 books the whole year. That's the #readathon16.I have also joined Goodreads.

So far I am ahead of schedule and have read 15 books.

In January

1. A book that takes place at Christmas

Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol The Pears Edition (a classic)

2. A graphic Novel
Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou and others (didn't really like it)

I read The Secret Garden to my pupils because we went to the theatre to see it as a musical. This one doesn't count in the 26.(Excellent!)

3. A book that takes place on an island.
Moiraida by Eva Omiroli (Not good!)

In February
4. A book with an animal on the title or the cover.
At the flipper of the dolphin by Takis Georgiou (Not good at all!)

5. A book that takes place during a war.
Anne means mum by Stelios Stylianou (Very good)

6. A book that takes place somewhere you always wanted to travel (that's Cornwall, England)
Rosamund Pilcher's The carousel (She has written much better books)

7. A book with at least 6 words in the title.
Jonas Jonasson's The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared (Excellent!)

8. A book with fewer than 150 pages
Tiny white shell by Katerina Chlorokosta whose blog I love reading.(Excellent!)
In March
10. A book by an author younger than 35 years old.
Giak by Demosthenes Papamarkos (Very good!)

9. A book that is the debut of its author. Ahyat Anhar by Maro Karga which was Excellent!!!!!

11. A children's book
Richard Scarry's Best Story Book ever(Very good)
12. A book with short stories.
Short stories by Alexandros Papadiamandis (a classic)

13. A book with a book on the cover
Aviccena by Gilbert Sinoue (Very good)

In April so far
14. A book by a writer who uses a pen name.
The Graphic Novel Aivali by Soloup (Excellent!)

15. A book by a publishing house you don't often read. (This one was a gift by dear Edgar in the States who wanted to give me all the books by Helene Hanff. Thanks Edgar!)
Helene Hanff's The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street (Very good, really witty)

Last but not least the bookmark I have been using since Christmas in my books is one made with love by my friend Andria of andriasserendipity showing me, hubby and Barca!

Isn't it beautiful?
Why don't you join us in Our Beautiful World with a blogpost about books?

Also any suggestions on books that I might enjoy are very welcome.

A gift for a baby

 That was back in January but I am so far behind in my blogging that I decided to start writing short blogposts again almost every day to cover everything that has happened and I haven't blogged about.
So here  is something I made for my friend Sarah's baby. It's an owl made of felt which doubles as a ringing toy.

I also stitched this for the baby.

Here's a photo from Sarah's blog with all my little gifts.

And then I made another owl for my friend Juliana who loves owls.

Spring thing

This week's word in Our Beautiful World was chosen by dear Kirsty of Handmade Little Things
and is

Spring thing.

It is Spring already here and we have seen some of its characteristics.
The weather is better, it is warmer, the sun shines during the day, days are longer and the morning and evening light are so sweet.
Everything is green and the trees are starting to bloom.

 I have very few flowers in my tiny balcony corner and some of the freesias and crocus bloomed so these are the ones I am showing you today.And especially the white freesias smellt so nice!

At school the vegetable garden of the kindergarten is doing very well and some scarecrows I gave them (gifts by dear Efi) are scaring the birds away!

We celebrated the National Holiday on the 25th of March with the traditional pupils' parade.

 And my mum made the traditional dish of the day fried cod with garlic sauce.

There was a day with hail too but that is a

Spring Thing 

too sometimes!

And on the 3rd of April hubby and I managed to run the 5000m which took place during
the 11th Alexander the Great Marathon in our city.

 He did 39 minutes by a fast walking pace and I did 43 minutes running and walking. We really loved it and plan to do this again!

That was one more

Spring thing

 we did!
You can join us in Our Beautiful World with your own

spring thing.

A visit to an old school

The 1st High School of Thessaloniki is famous for its achievements and for the people who studied there.

It was built in 1899 as a house for the Modianos, a powerful Jewish family of merchants in the city who were afterwards victims of the Nazis during World War II as the majority of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki.

In 1978 the earthquake of Thessaloniki destroyed the building but fortunately it wasn't allowed to be put down. It was left to decay for years. 40 years later the building was rebuilt with European money boost. That's how slowly things go in Greece. But better late than never!

On the 31st of March it was allowed to visit it before it comes to its proper use as administration building of the High School next to it.

I took the chance as it is in my neighbourhood and visited it.

 That's how all of the neighbourhood looked in the old years.

What a pity the modern Greeks chose to live in blocks of flats, flats like cages and narrow streets. Our city would have been much more beautiful if we had evaluated correctly the old buildings and turned them into beautiful homes or offices and not put them down to make blocks of flats. That's how builders, civil engineers and architects became rich in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Now that nothing is built in the city and flats have lost their value and are sold cheaply they are changing profession.

Here you can see how the project started.
And here you can see how it is today.

Here is the alumni page on facebook.
And here are the stolpersteine outside the building.They are the stones of truth for 149 Jewish students of the school who were taken to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Only 2 returned alive.
You can read how they came to be here.

Anyway this blogpost is full of photos of the building I took while visiting it (except for the last one taken from the Internet) and is dedicated to my husband and all the people I know who went to this school.

Compassion

This week's prompt in Our Beautiful World  was chosen by me and is the word
                                                            compassion
and that's a really tough word in today's world.

(painting at the Mosaics exhibition I visited and talked about in this blogpost)

And that's because no matter what is happening in our world today some people find it so dfficult to show
                                                            compassion 
to other people.

(Nickos Vavatsis Ro Art Gallery)
 I just want to remind them that what is happening to our neighbour today might happen to us tomorrow.
What is happening to another country today might happen to our country tomorrow.

(Demetra Xenaki- Deisis, Myro Gallery)

Health problems,poverty, financial problems, violence, criminality, terrorism, war happen all around us.

(Ro Art Gallery)
If we are not victims of these situations today we don't know if we will be victims tomorrow. And that's how life is. It cannot be good for ever.

(Christiana Iliopoulou Hopirtean Myro Gallery)
Remember that when you suffer you need help and you look around you for that help.

(Ciprian Hopirtean Myro Gallery)
It cannot always come from a friend or relative. One day a total stranger might help you.
And that's why we should all show
                                                           compassion 
not only to our relatives and friends but to people we don't even know either. Because life is a cycle and you are sometimes going up and sometimes going down.

(Christina Boukour Myro Gallery)
Here I would like to thank my friends and my colleagues at school who once again supported our decision to help the Syrian family by bringing blankets, clothes and other things to cover their needs.

(Hari Mitroushi, Ro Art Gallery)
This blogpost is filled with photos I took from various Art Gallery visits recently.

The photos except the first are from exhibitions I recently went to at Ro Art Gallery and
Myro Gallery.

(Christina Boukour Myro Gallery)

The art exhbition at Ro Art Gallery is by various artists based on the book "Because of the crisis I give you my child" by Aigli Brouskou.

(Ro Art Gallery)
You could read a very interesting article on Refugees and compassion on Reality and Fiction blog by my friend Ruth Ludlam who explains it so well and I thank her for that.
You can join us in Our Beautiful World blog and link your own blogpost with this theme.