Tuesday, 28 May 2013

'Summer come along'

".....Summer come, I finally made it
I never thought I'd get to see the winter through
I watched the birds race their shadows cross the cornfield
Well, you can't catch them, but I can catch you....."

Here we are again, back in our lovely San Stefanos home, about to enjoy our 7th summer over here.  

We left the UK at the end of April and took our usual route across Europe.  As you know we have family strategically placed for our overnight stops, which is a real bonus for many reasons.  We now see our overseas based family twice a year whether they like it or not! Thank you Paul, Milena, Liam & Antonia in Heidelberg and thank you Deborah, Franco, Eleonora & Georgio in Milan!  This year we caught the ferry to mainland Greece from Trieste with the usual amusing chaos that boarding seems to involve.  
Leaving Trieste
Unfortunately the ferry was half the size of our usual one and was rammed with Greek people returning home for Easter.  It took over an hour to unload when we arrived because all the destinations had been loaded in no particular order, which meant whole sections of vehicles were blocked in on the decks.  But with lots of shouts, gestures and whistles being blown we were home, in Corfu, in time to celebrate Easter.

In 2013 Greek Easter fell on the 5th of May, a full five weeks after the holiday was marked in Western Europe.  Easter within the Greek Orthodox Church is usually (but not always) on a different date to that observed by other Christian churches. The main reason for this is that the Orthodox church uses the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar) to determine the date of Easter, rather than the Gregorian calendar (adopted in the time of Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century). To avoid the temptation to fill this post with the unintelligible mathematical formula used to make the calculations of the date (yes, it really is that complicated) let’s leave it at that. It’s enough to say that this is the latest date for Easter for 30 years. 

For many people in Corfu Easter is considered a more important event than Christmas, during this period the preparations, ceremonies and celebrations that take place across Corfu and over several days are well worth experiencing.  Precise festivities vary between communities but throughout Corfu during Easter there was a lot of good food and wine, plenty of noise and a healthy mix of religious observance and wild celebration.
Festivities began on Holy Thursday, with the painting of eggs; 

the people of Greece laugh at our childish chocolate eggs and sweet-filled Easter baskets.  In accordance with a long, macabre tradition in the Greek Orthodox faith, Easter eggs in Greece are dyed a deep shade of crimson to represent blood – both the special, magical blood of Christ and regular old human blood that symbolizes life and wellness.  Our friend Sue gave me an Easter gift of traditional sweet bread, tsoureki. 

(Similar to Italian Panettone) which seemed to take forever to finish!  The church service on the Thursday evening remembers Christ’s final night before his crucifixion, with women often keeping vigil in the churches all through the night.
Good Friday is a somber day, with candlelit processions and flowers brought to the churches. In many homes no cooking is done on Good Friday, with only the simplest food eaten as a mark of mourning.
We decided we wanted to join in with it all  and see the famous Corfu town celebrations, So on Easter Saturday we picked Keith and Sue up at 8.30am and headed for Corfu Town, to witness the ‘throwing of pots’, a tradition unique to Corfu. 

It was so well organised car parking on the harbour, police directing traffic, shuttle buses to the centre of the town, it felt like a festival back home! We went straight to the Liston to watch a huge procession of priests, religious icons being carried and several bands.  







The pot throwing all started at 11am when people threw large terracotta pots from their balconies onto the street below with the belief that bad spirits in the house will be thrown out with them.  We all came away with a piece of broken pot for good luck.
In the evening we walked up to Avliotes (the village above San Stefanos), to the church service with crowds of people we know for midnight to mark the Resurrection. The celebration began with all our candles being lit from one person to another as we gathered outside. The service ended with fireworks flying in every direction. All the locals were in their finest clothes, which for the younger women it mean wearing what could only be described as “stilts” (huge wedges).  The only problem with this is the church is at the top of a very steep hill, best described as a 1 in 3, so going up was no problem but many had to be given a helping hand to get back down again with some having to walk backwards to navigate the steep incline.

Sunday is the main day of celebration, with spit roast lamb or goat and generous quantities of wine flowing freely. The parties started early and went through the night, some lasting well into the next day.
When we first arrive back here we spend the first few weeks cleaning, fixing, sorting and planting.  There is always a lot to do after the rainy winters here. 

Our friend Bob came round and plumbed in our washing machine and built the new kitchen shelving we had brought with us.  Our landlord has finally piped hot water into our kitchen so I no longer have to fill a bucket in the bathroom to wash up! And we bought ourselves a new fridge freezer!
Chuckle brothers
Keith and Sue have donated lots of plants to start our veg garden.  And we have bought some plants to trail around our balcony.

And of course we spent our first few weeks chilling and winding down from our stressful UK winter. We have caught up with all our friends and feel part of the community again, feels like we have never been away.

Oh yes, and Keith has already done 12 gigs throughout May, meeting up with many fellow singers and musicians……....

.Nearly forgot ..........we are not on holiday!
Yamas!