The Village Festival...

The village festival used to be an annual event but when the 'Crisis' hit these sorts of celebrations ceased.  This year for the first time in three years all the villages seem to have restored this tradition.  It is held in the playground of the village school here in Drouseia where they set up and cater for anything up to 2,000 people!  The last time it was held they brought in Greece's answer to Tom Jones - a man called Antipas - who looked about 50 on the posters but who was definitely rather more than that in real life.  The local women didn't seem to mind they went wild for him anyway!

We had gathered together a group of us who boosted the ex-pat contingent - it is a shame that even though there are a fare number of ex-pats who live in Drouseia many do not seem to support the village in any way.  Having said that it can be quite difficult to find out what is going on and often we learn too late that there has been something at the Hotel or Amphitheatre which we would have attended.

We had to set off for the festival like the SAS under the cover of darkness because Charlie had decided he wanted to come with us.  We got quite some way out of the estate before John had to pick him up and take him back home.  The cats will insist on coming with us if we are walking.  In fact one evening when we went down to visit Diana and Rob both Charlie and Boris came too - walking all the way, even crossing the main road which bothered the hell out of us but they were determined to come and come they did - the only trouble is they are rarely bothered by traffic up here where we live so they have very little road sense.

Even though we were a mixed bag of people on the table - some of whom were meeting each other for the first time we all seemed to get on well.  The evening started with a buffet similar to that which is served at a traditional Cypriot wedding - salad and dips, meatballs, pastichio and kleftiko all washed down with some local wine.

 It was a very cool evening with heavy condensation which meant that the best way to keep warm was to join in with the local dancing - Bambos and George gave us a personal demonstration!

The musicians shipped in for the evening were really good because to the untrained ear six hours of Greek music can begin to sound like a dirge - not so on this occasion - in fact when they were tuning up I reckon the keyboard player was a classical musician.  They continued playing until about 3.00am - we know because we could still hear when we got back home.

I shall leave you with a really lovely photograph of our dear friends Sheila and Klaus - having a good time!