Easter Sunday, May Day and St George

Greek Easter is over.  Till next year.  We ate a lot, imbibed a little local red from our friend's barrel, talked a lot, laughed, socialized with visitors from our neighbourhood and enjoyed everyone's company.  A lot of cleaning but having daughters makes it all so much easier.  A job shared is a job done quickly.  Daughters also relieve us of all those leftovers, taking them home for their hungry hordes in the next few days.

Neighbours 'popped in' for a few moments, had a glass of wine and inspected  the goat, giving their advice and opinion on its considered tenderness and taste. Ours was both tender and tasty. I tried not to eat any of that delicious crispy skin, the fattiest part of the animal.  Elli ate the brain and sucked the teeth.  No-one ate those eyeballs this year. 
Music and children's voices could be heard all around us, smoke arising from the hills and valleys as everyone put some sort of meat on the BBQ, sang and danced, as is the greek style.

The head roaster and today's go-pher




Having a drink with a friend while the goat is being taken off the spit (in the background)

MAY DAY
1st of May is also May Day.  We should have gone out in the fields as we do every year to gather wild flowers and an olive branch to hang over our gate.  However, easter Sunday is a day already so full of happenings, we just forgot.

Usually we find a nice young olive branch and join it in a circle.  To this we tie poppies and daisies and whatever else we find until the wreath is rich with colour and variety.  An added artichoke and head of garlic will bring us luck.  The wreath stays over the door or gate till midsummer when it is burnt on a bonfire.

Monday after easter is the feast of ST GEORGE
St George is usually celebrated on 23rd April but if, as this year, it falls during Lent the fiesta is held on the Monday after easter Sunday.

We have many, many Georges which means a telephone call to them all, a greeting on facebook these days and a visit with a box of sticky cakes or a bottle of ouzo  if they are close friends or relatives and live on the island.

So it is not really over just yet, not until the last of the 'Georges' leftover roast lamb has been finished and the barrel drunk dry.

Then tomorrow is the feast day of St Mark and a local saint St Leonidio.

And then we can rest.

Sent by Turbo-X device