Babies Birthday

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while will know that my cat - Ginger - had babies last year. They are now one year old so I thought I would update you with birthday pictures.

This is Jessica, who I kept.



This is Ossie, Who Kath and Alan took.


This is Bella, also with Kath and Alan.


This is Ariadne (left) and Persephone (right) who live with Jill in Sissi.
Happy birthday all you babies - I will have to stop calling you that now eh?

Malia Street Carnival - the first in 4 years!

More from the night - courtesy of Liz

A few photos from the night

This is the gang from left to right at the back, Alan, Kath, Penny, Peter, Liz and Bob front row Sigrid and me (the fairy godmother in white)



This is Jackie....



The Raki drip stand. It has IV drips full of Raki for people to drink from.

For some strange reason I didnt manage to get many photos on the night, but Liz has some so I will try to get copies and post them later. (what do you mean...was I drunk?....how could you think that?)

More from the carnival

Just one or two speakers.....

The childrens entertainers had everyone enthralled.....






Celia, her daughter and twin grandsons.

I am not sure of the names of two of the guys on the slovaki stall but second left is Yiannis (remember him from the olive picking?) and far right is his friend Dimitris.
This is Volande and Rafael from my local taverna - Rodamanthis.


Just a few twigs to keep us warm!

One of my neighbours and his granchild.
Peace for a while at least until it all starts.

Waiting for the bouncy slide....

Its Carnival day

Well it is Carnival (Apokreas) day at last and the preparations are under way. There is a lot of work to do to convert the village square into a party venue. Here are some photos of the start of the work, which will continue until this afternoon. The childrens evens start at somewhere around 4pm (well it is Greece!) and then the Cretan music and dancing from 7 - 9 followed by music from the DJ until around 5 or 6 in the morning. I will take as many pictures as I can so that you can get a flavour of the events, but may not get too many tonight (I wonder why?)


The Raki stand and the hut which will be part of the carnival soup stand.


Manolis is helping as usual (remember him from the olive picking?)

The slovaki (kebab) stands start to go up. They will serve around 2000 tonight!


The sound system went in last night and was thoroughly tested (and is so loud you can probably hear it on the coast) before being wrapped up to protect it until this afternoon.
Look out for more later......

And it snowed!

Well it does happen sometimes, and boy did it yesterday.....we had thunder and lightning, and then the heavens opened...with hail stones.....the sun came out.....then more thunder and lightning and BLIZZARD....lots and lots of snow.....force 10 winds........Oh Dear! Luckily the tavernas were open and we could get some Raki to keep us warm :-) And in the morning, what did this intelligent (!), organised and sometimes sensible woman do???? She locked herself out of the house for 2 hours in nothing but her dressing gown! Cold or what???? Its a good job I have friends who are good at breaking and entering and who will remain nameless...Alan....Ooops. I will leave you with just a few pictures so that you know I havent made it up.