Who wants the Greek people poor, hungry, angry and devastated?

I could not resist yesterday's wordless post!
While the Parliament was voting for the new more strict measures of the Europeans (and lots of the members of parliament were refusing to vote for them and getting resigned or sent out by their leaders) the city centre of Athens was getting burnt by the KnownUnknown as they are called! Who are they? Protesters? Definitely not! There were thousands of people protesting outside the Parliament! Who are all these who broke into shops, stole lots of things like mobile phones and then burnt shops, banks and old cinemas? That destroyed all those beautiful aristocratic buildings that were a hundred years old and survived two World Wars? It is such a pity!Modern Greece eats up her children and her children destroy their country!
Thank you all for your comments. I slept very late last night watching the news and fearing that more riots will break out.
This morning the markets were happy that our Parliament voted for the new measures! Is that why all this is done? For the markets? And what about the people? Does anyone think of the people?There are already too many unemployed and homeless people in Greece. This number will rise since salaries and pensions will again be cut down and prices of services and products will go up! Who wants the Greek people poor , hungry, angry and devastated?
My friend Ian from England showed me this great blog of a British teacher of English living and working in Greece. He is also a photographer. He has followed the riots and has great photos for you to see.
Hopefully...we will survive!

Greece in flames!

Birthday gifts!

Thank you so much all of those who commented on my previous post. It is great feeling that some people out there really understand you! It is also great to have new commenters. I try to answer my comments personally but some of you have no e-mail on your blogger page so I cannot do that!
Anyway as I promised in my previous post here are a couple of gifts I recently received for my birthday!
From my dear Marabeth in the States this lovely red sea glass pendant made by Deb Lowther.

You might not be able to see it but this is probably from a bike tail light or something! I love it!
Here is the total contents of one more lovely parcel from Marabeth! I loved the card especially the part that talks about fullfilling dreams!LOL!

 And this strawberry sweet parcel is from my pen friend Sigrid from Austria.

 I found this beautifully smelling mouse inside and wondered what it is. Well it is a handmade hot/cold water "bottle". It is filled with wheat and lavender and can be cooked for 5 minutes or cooled for a while and put around a painful spot of your body! I really appreciate that as the awful weather we have been having causes quite  a lot of pain on my shoulders! Ich danke Ihnen!

A leap year

Feeling down has made me avoid blogging recently because I thought I would not write a happy blogpost and I hate that! Anyway the reasons for being down are many, big and small.
2012 is a leap year and I am afraid it is not bringing good luck so far not to Greece, not to our family, not to our friends.
My sea glass friend Angela's father suddenly died.
Theo Angelopoulos' sudden death cost hubby's Godson so much as he was working on his last movie.
The weather has been terrible,everywhere, all over Greece, too cold, snowing and here in town it is so cold and snowing from time to time but without covering the streets.We have been spending so much on heating!
The financial situation is getting worse and worse. Our government is talking and agreeing with the Europeans and as a result we will have less money in our salaries and in our pensions! Young people under 25 years old will get 400 euros salary! Can they live and start a family like that? I am afraid the majority of our young generation will move out of Greece.
On the other hand demands on teachers are more and more. And parents don't make things easier I would say.When you do your best with what you have and hear no thank you but instead accusations for inability then you just have to wonder where we are going to!
A shattered dream of mine for a trip has made things worse in my mood recenlty. We can't even dream any more.
And money is demanded more and more, taxes, extra taxes, bills, extra bills, sudden damages in car and house, all demand to pay more. Where from?
I have only been stitching lately and reading.These are the only two free past times of mine!And TV of course!
I am glad I don't need to buy new books, I have many unread in my library and there is a lending library in the neighbourhood too.Also I don't need to buy threads as I had bought most DMC colours years ago so I still have to use them to stitch. Nothing else. No going out. No shopping. No Internet shopping either. I am afraid I won't do any more Internet shopping for the next couple of months.
I haven't written any letters and I still haven't thanked so many people for their lovely gifts.I promise a blogpost about these generous friends of mine soon.
I hope you are feeling much better than me and your life is going smoothly and happily!

All kinds of things.

 This bundle of ribbons was lying around on the curb so I gathered it up and here it is clean and inside a box ready to be used somehow.

 These golden leaves were stuck on a huge branch of a tree and was decorating inside a museum in my neighbourhood for an exhibition. When they threw the branch out of the museum I painstakingly and patiently collected all the leaves!!!!!

 This lovely letter and birthday card arrived recently for my birthday from my dear friend in the Azores Maria Jose!

 I recently taught my students how to smile!!!!!!

 And fruit!

My mood is like the weather!

Thank you everyone who have joined my blog recently. It is amazing that I have 58 followers. I am not a collector of followers I admit. I prefer readers who care to comment from time to time,not always of course.
My mood is just like the weather right now.Freezing cold and dark!
 Here is how the weather was a couple of days ago.It started snowing a little bit. I wasn't happy to see the snow as I was thinking of how many people are out there homeless in the cold or how many flats in the city don't have heating any more because of the financial crisis!

Thank you my teachers....

Thank you all for your wishes on my birthday! I really appreciate it when people remember me! I try to remember people's birthdays too but I admit I sometimes forget!
Today is my Godson's birthday,too! Happy birthday Elias!
We spent two days off school on Monday and Tuesday and with the Drama Club we made a presentation for the pensioners teachers invited by our administration office. The presentation included singing, dancing, poetry reading and a little acting. Also hubby added his shadow puppetry and it was great fun. All pensioners enjoyed it very much!
What I enjoyed most was that I met old colleagues who got pension. But I also met a Physics teacher of mine and was so happy to aknowledge his teaching abilities from stage that he was moved! Great teachers are always appreciated. He used to tell me to study Physics but well I had my mind on English teaching from very young! And I am not sorry about it! It gives me great pleasure!Inspite being so underpaid!
Here are some photos not very good ones I am afraid!