Easter Sunday Begins

The meat is up and turning






It was a good day, it was a long day

Everything has been cleaned up and now it's time to relax a little.

You'll hear all about it very soon, of course

Cheers Big Ears

Easter Saturday

  Christ will be ressurected, the fast is over.  Tonight we can crack red eggs, eat koulourakia and slurp offal soup.  Eating offal soup after midnight is not always good for the digestion.  We do try to be frugal with our portions though the soup is lovely and hot, lemony and generally yummy, if you eat offal.

Today is a long day doing all the last minute preparations.  

The back terrace has to be swept and mopped

The weeds along our front entrance pulled and the road swept

A big canopy is put up.  We were prepared for rain but now the canopy will keep off the sun.  Yesterday the sun came out and temperatures climbed.  It looks like Sunday will be the same

Dried oregano rubbed ready to put on and in the lamb

The oregano stalks go onto the bbq fire to send out their pungent aroma

The pascal lamb (not goat this year) was picked up from the water taxi and carried home in a big balck plastic bag.  It looks like a big one, around 17 kilos.  That's going to take many hours of cooking

All the chairs are taken out to be hosed down to remove winter's dust and cobwebs

We still have to make the offal soup.  There were no entrails in this lamb so we wait for our friendly butcher to send them across from the mainland

Then it is midnight mass, fireworks and offal

More on Friday

Tonight we held ordinary brown wax candles for the parade. 

 Tomorrow at the resurrection service it will be white candles, candles often decorated with ribbons and flowers.  It's a happy time.  Christ is ressurected, the fast is over.

  Good Friday night we often don't eat after the parade.  It will be 11pm before we return home after traipsing along the waterfront, listening to priests chanting and weaving through the crowds.

K has been cleaning intestines and entrails  all day long.  Intestines have nasties which need to be cleaned out. 

Intestines - a long tube through which food travels right through the stomach and out the other end, to put it politely.  

The intestines are wrapped around the spit pole of innards called 'kokoretsi' that are bbqed till crisp and brown.

Godchildren receive their easter presents today.  Godparents play an important role here, especially at Easter.  We have three godsons, all grow-up now,  When they were younger we gave them a pair of shoes or a set of new clothes, a decorated white candle for the evening service, some sweet bread and a chocolate egg.

Epitafios

Candle parade

Good Friday

Great or Good Friday

A day of mourning.  Shops  and offices remain closed until after the morning church service when Christ is taken down from the cross and placed on the flower covered epitafio (bier).  

No cleaning allowed, no sewing, knitting, no playing of music or washing of clothes.  But naturally cooking and washing dishes is permitted, essential in fact.  This is a very strict day of fasting.  Traditional people eat no oil today so it is boiled potatoes, tomatoes and cucumber with vinegar, olives, onions and bread for lunch and dinner.  We have boiled shrimps as well.  A gift from a friend yesterday.  They are tiny but tender.  I snap the heads off and eat the rest soft shell and all.

Church bells toll a slow death knell which carries on all day.   I believe they do stop during siesta now but then continue till the evening service which ends in a candlelight parade along the waterfront.

My sis in law insists that Good Friday is always dull and overcast and often raining, but today there is a north wind blowing and all the red dust from the Sahara has disappeared.  It is sunny and warm.

The island is pulsating.  People everywhere, walking, drinking coffee, city slickers driving their big jeeps with darkened windows, everyone greeting friends with a 'Kronia Polla' and 'Kali Anastasi' a 'Good Resurrection' .

Grandchildren take part in the evening procession.  One is an altar boy and grandaughter carries a basket of rose petals which are scattered along the way.  Each of the three big churches and the church at the Naval base take part in the parade.  Each decorated bier, priests and congregation meet near the main square on the harbour.  One church sails along the waterfront in small boats, disembarking at the square.  

During the day we  visit the churches on Poros to see each epitafio, light a candle and the children scramble under each epitafio three times to bring them good health.  

This is one day we, just us, don't drink alcohol.  
Many people here got out after the parade to drink ouzo and eat kalamari and shrimps.  We go home.

Great Thursday

Thursday of Holy Week

 This is the day we traditionally  dye our red eggs.

Done and dusted

Red eggs boiled, dyed and polished with olive oil. I boiled the eggs last night and our traditional person got into action early this morning to make sure operation red-egg was carried out to his satisfaction . He dyed and polished them all himself.

Tonight is the long service of the reading of the Twelve Gospels.  At the end of the evening women remain to decorate the bier of Christ with flowers, preparing for Good Friday when his effigy is removed from the cross and placed amongst the flowers.  They often go out in groups to see what the women in the other churches have done and admire and gossip.  My daughters and usually a grandaughter or two usually take part in the ritual.  The after midnight run to the other churches with giggly friends and the competition for best decorated bier is always a big draw.

I just got a call from my daughter asking if we have any blossom on our lemon trees.  None this year at all.  It was all destroyed in last weeks hail storm.  They are scrambling round to find enough flowers to cover the big wooden platform.

25th April
ANZAC day
Australian and New Zealand Army Corp
Remembrance Day in both countries

Family

Easter Exodus


Number plates and licences confiscated over the last few months are being given back so everyone can leave the city.  This happens every year and shows how important it is that the average Greek can return to their village or island to take part in the diverse customs and rites  of their place of birth. Most importantly they make their mother happy by connecting with her first of all and then the extended family of which they are an integral part wherever they may live the rest of the year.

They don't go on holiday, they go home.

  Deep family roots.  When someone is asked where they come from here in Greece and they reply 'Athens' the next question will be, 'yes, but where are your roots'.  They will reply, 'well, my father came from this island and my mother from this village' and the 'asker' will say 'ahhhh, so you're a Poroioti' (from Poros) or whatever. 

Thousands leave the big cities for their small village wherever that may be.  There will extra buses, trains and ferries to carry them home and the outward lanes of the national highways are opened up to carry the extra traffic.  There will be one lane for incoming cars at the toll booths and 7 or 8 for departing cars, and vice versa as the week ends.

The church is an important part of their lives whether they attend church or not in the city.  Every evening service this week will have crowds at the churches, coming and going, lighting candles, greeting long lost friends and family and even listening to the priest and taking part of the service.

Holy Thursday today. More to come

Great Wednesday

Wednesday of Holy (Great) week

Easter cookie day - the day of the koulourakia


Overcast today with short rain showers.  The air is thick with dust from the Sahara desert.  Rain turns it into a thin layer of red mud which sticks to everything.  The dust in the air turns eyes red and makes allergies worse.  So much for cleaning.  

There was no cleaning today.  We went for our big easter shop, picking up essential alcohol and all the ingredients for the easter koulourakia (cookies/biscuits).  We picked up the grandkids and brought them up to help with the preparations.  The boys bundled up prunings from the grapevine and the jasmine ready to be burnt on the BBQ.  Nels made the dough for the easter cookies and then they all rolled and shaped and made a mound of koulourakia.

Hopefully they were having fun as well

The kids don't fast though two of them are not eating meat this week.  They sampled the koulourakia and ate a pile of them too.  So did I.  No-one else is allowed to try them till Easter Sunday, after the fast is broken,  They are made with eggs, butter and milk and also ouzo and orange zest for aroma.  Darn good batch!

Every year we make the same recipe and every year it turns out a little different.  Nels and the rest of the kids excelled themselves this time!