It's Easter festivities time again...

Hen's eggs done for Easter Greek style by Liz.

We spent most of Friday and Saturday last week getting ready ready for our small Easter bash.  In previous years Tony has held a huge event with upward of 100 people coming to his house for the Easter Sunday traditional roast.  Last year he said it was to be his last and he and Liz were staying in Vournikas at Liz's apartment so we decided that we would just joint host a small event for a few friends from this end of the Island.  Tony and I took a little time out on Friday to sail Izola down from Lefkas marina to her temporary mooring at Vlicho prior to the start of the Easter Monday Yacht race, the curry cup, from Nidri to Paleros. Other than that it was gearing everything up to feed our guests.

Sandra, Tony and I preparing Miss Piggy!

Warm work this cooking lark!

With Sunday finally arrived Liz was cooking downstairs in her apartment and Sandra was cooking upstairs in our and Tony and I were getting Miss Piggy acquainted with the charcoal and of course testing the quality of the wine!  This had to be done as Tony was convinced that the wine we had bought would give him headache, Hhhmmm...
Guests started to arrive from about one o'clock and the party was under way.   Despite all the free flowing drink and food there was only one glass broken over the entire day amazingly.   They say that you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear but we know you can make a bloody good crackling from one, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.   We managed to get almost all the clearing up done before going to bed knowing that we were going to Paleros the next day.

Table full of friends to help us devour the feast.

Miss Piggy gets an all over tan.

Monday morning and up to Vlicho for 10:30, although the start wasn't until 12 we had to get loaded up and up to Nidri for the start.  Sandra was driving around to the mainland port of Paleros to where the race would finish.  We had booked into the Thalassa hotel for the night as the culmination of the day is a meal and prize giving at the Indian restaurant in the village.  There is only really room for one couple to sleep on Izola, and Sandra is not that keen on sailing anyway so it's a good compromise.  There were 14 or 15 starters in the race although only 9 completed the course, it was a strange day however as the wind varied in strength so much that we went from sailing nicely in places at   5 knots plus to being totally stationary without even sufficient motion for steering.  We also ended up being stopped in our tracks a couple of times by Motor boats and the Nidri star pleasure boat, this did cause Tony to utter to odd occasional profanity well maybe not that odd or even that occasional come to think of it!  Anyway we managed to get over the finish line in fifth but after the times had been adjusted to suit the handicap system we ended up in third place overall and got a late Easter egg for our efforts.   The meal at the Indian in the evening was great, the first Indian meal I have had since last September and I savoured every single mouthful, in fact I even helped Tony eat some of his him not being a fan of spicy food.   Before the prize giving Ruairi took time out to remember absent friends so rest assure Maureen and Mark, you may not be here at the moment but you are being remembered by everyone.  Tuesday morning and back to Lefkas with Izola but we had a mini race against Jungle on the way with me doing the skippering, that's probably the reason why we came second!  but I did managed to get the fastest speed of the event out of the boat at over 7 knots.

A cruise chute trimmer I will be...

Wednesday and Sandra and I decided to do a spring clean of the house and got in the ladders to wash down all the roof rafters in the vaulted ceiling of our house and yes it was mucky but not any more.  Then as just as it was getting dark we found out that we had a drain blockage which resulted in the washing machine discharging it's contents all over the floor of the garage, don't worry Liz it hasn't drowned your apartment again.  Anyway suffice to say that Sandra can't do without a washer, more chance of doing without a husband I think, so I've had to dismantle all the Greek plumbing find the problem and rectify it but all's well that end's well.