Dance festival time

The Alonissos Dance Festival got underway last weeked to great fanfare with the dancers all arriving by boat in their costumes before a parade down the main street of the port.  The weather was fabulous and even the webcam worked!  Unfortunately we got roped in to make a human barricade / walkway for the dancers to leave the boat so I didn't manage to get many photos but these give a good flavour.

 There were around 700 participating dancers from all over Greece so we had 3 nights of dancing, music and fireworks as a finale.  If that wasn't enough our landlady had friends and family visiting so we they have had bbq's on the roof, we have had some interesting singing (ish) from the rooftop fuelled by ouzo and raki and have now breathed a sigh of relief that everyone has gone back from whence they came and we might be able to get to sleep before 2am!!

As I have said, the weather has been hot and sultry for several weeks now and so one of our friends (Julie) organised a boat trip for Tuesday (tomorrow). The gods obviously didn't fancy that idea as last night we had a huge thunderstorm, torrential rain and it is now much cooler at around 21 degrees.  It is set to be hit and miss tomorrow so the boat trip is off.......back up to 29 degrees weds, so of all the days to book it!

Talking of Julie, she is the lady who had Ed, the dog that we first looked after on Alonissos. Sadly Ed passed away in December but fate has stepped in and this little one was dumped outside a rescue centre in Volos at the age of 4 weeks old with a broken leg...Julie had now adopted her, so meet Mia (who is adorable but part alligator going by the amount she uses her teeth!!)

Ed

Mia

Party time!

There are a few 'milestone' birthdays on the island this year and the first was celebrated in some style!  Kevin was 70 this year and we were amongst the lucky islanders to be invited to the birthday bash.  We all boarded one of the local excursion boats where we were served Prosecco and canapes and then sailed into one of the bays where a couple of the local musicians played greek songs accompanied by more Prosecco!  Then it was off to a beach bar/taverna for a meal, free flowing wine and more music before heading home around 1.30am.....a good time was had by all, especially Kevin who apparently eventually made it to bed around 4.30am having had a few more drinks on their terrace (always seems like a good idea at the time😈 ).

The transport

Fran and Kevin (birthday boy)

Party time!

 Having had some interesting weather for June, thunderstorms etc, the weather has now settled into it's usual routine of sun, hotter sun, sweltering sun and 'oh my god, please can we have clouds' sun!!! There has been a wicked level of humidity and intense heat with Accuweather happily stating, temp 97 with a real feel of 117...eek!  Thankfully by the time the really hot stuff arrived, we were back in our little air-conditioned studio in Patitiri having finished our latest dog sitting stint in a house with only fans. We had a lovely 'welcome back' evening on the roof with the other people staying at the apartments arranged by Karen (the landlady) who cooked Calamari fresh from the fishing boats.
The poor dogs had all been melting in the heat so we had a lovely afternoon just before the end of our stay involving a hose pipe, a plastic bath tub and me and Paul in our swim gear getting as wet as the 3 dogs did!!

not a bad view to wake up to :)

The 3rd Alonissos Dance Festival gets underway on Saturday night (8th) and somehow we have found ourselves roped in to help with the buffet for the attending dancers, all 300 of them!! As the organisation has all been done by Greek men, I hate to think how this will pan out!  Apparently last year they ran out of everything before they had cooked the next batch and the dancers got so fed up waiting that they all sent for Gyros!! This year there are 24 dance groups over 3 days so it should be fun and very busy down at the port.  It will also get rather busy where we live as the landlords ex army mates have all arrived on the island who can all apparently out drink anyone, anytime.....there are five 2 litre bottles of Ouzo upstairs which apparently 'might' just be enough along with his daughter, her husband and his family from Albania.....ear plugs required I think!

Finally for now a message to our friend back in the UK, Ian, we are so sorry this happened to you (told you all that clean living was bad for you 😊 )but it looks like you are now getting stronger every day. We both wish you all the best and will obviously come and see you once we are back in the UK.  I hope you get to read this and have now remembered all your pin numbers for your phone etc!!  Lots of love from Greece xx