Yia-yia from York and Stefan have been home for Easter, so I have been very busy. Have just got back from the ferry, after seeing them off.
The hotel puts on big celebrations for the tourists but there are always some people who think they are being original and like to troop across to the village and join in our local celebrations. My Yia-yia says they call the tourists 'grockles', she said lots of people think it is a West Country (in England, Somerset, Devon etc.) expression, but it has been used in Yorkshire as well for as long as she can remember.
So all those people who tried to claim my koumboloi are 'grockles', and so are the people who came to our Good Friday Mass. Laki said that wasn't very nice, when I told him, and then he said "we always call them ξένοι, or strangers anyway, if we don't call them βάρβαροι" - he laughed when he said that, so perhaps I won't call them grockles, just barbarians.
Laki also told me a good trick for the Αυγό Πάσχας, the eggs we decorate red at Easter
time and use like children in England play conkers. (Yia-yia told me that a long time ago, when I was little). Anyway, Laki said I should use boat varnish and mix it with the red dye. I wanted to put a pattern on it, but he said it would take too long, as we would have to let the varnish dry, and then do it again, otherwise the pattern could create fault lines along which it would crack. As it was, we had to cheat and do it early to give the varnish time to dry. Laki put it in his boat shed for me. After I had used it for a bit, it made its own pattern! And it worked, mine cracked everyone else's eggs, so I get all the good luck!
Yia-yia says she loves Easter here best, all the church bells ringing (they don't ring really, not like in England, they clang) and the candles and incense and then firecrackers and bonfires. She says there is a greater sense of joy here. In Skouthaki we have a candlelit procession, and the saint is blessed and then there are bonfires and picnics, and feasts on the beach.
Καλό Πάσχα στην αλήθεια!
