Carnival is Over

 Carnival is over for this year.

Clean Monday, celebrating the beginning of Lent is over.

No more celebrations till 25th March. Yooo hoo 

On a small Greek island dressing up and drinking is definitely part of life, 

at home or downtown.

Here are my two girls

And two more of the family

That green reveller is a granddaughter dressed up as a beer bottle, with her father.

The beer bottle has been around for decades. It used to be worn by her grandfather.

In the good old days.

Poros had all sorts of music and dancing for younger revellers, along the waterfront, before the nightlife began.

Monday, Clean Monday (Kathara Deftera), is a public holiday. 

Poros was full. There were hundreds of big, latest model cars,  belonging to rich Atehians, parked along the roadsides and narrowing our usually empty, at this time of the year, streets.

Meantime, back at the homestead we prepared for an informal family get-together.

First of all the octopus hanging out to dry.

 Boiled shrimp.

Today we eat seafood.

But no fish.

Just shellfish, spiny sea urchins, cuttlefish, octopus, shrimp (or are they prawns) and kalamari.

Flatbread called lagana and taramasalata (salted fish row pureed with bread, lemon and olive oil). Both the lagana and taramasalata we make ourselves.

Sweet was halvas, made with oil, semolina and a sugar syrup.  My sister in law made it and it disappeared in an instant.

'Foreigners' (ie heathens) and children also had icecream, and coffee with milk.

Octopus.

This was just boiled slowly with olive oil. Very tender and tasty.

We also had bbq-ed octopus and octopus with vinegar and oil .

And lots of ouzo.

We were given three bottles of ouzo, speciality of the island of Mytileni. Our traditional Greek has plenty to drink with the octopus leftovers. A traditional combination. 

It was a quieter day than usual. Quieter music and not as much alcohol consumed. But after a night on the town some of the family weren't quite ready for a second round. My good friend and I opened a bottle of bubbly leftover from New Year.

 And we had a surprise visit

from an Athenian based granddaughter. After a previous day on the ski fields, a night out in Athens and a 2 1/2 hour early morning boat trip to get here it really was a huge surprise. Amazing what you can do when you're 20.

Instead of flying kites this year Poppi and her sister pruned the roses, grapevine and jasmine and then cleared out the huge weeds from the driveway below.