Going to the wedding reception

On 24 July some of Mummy's and Daddy's friends were getting married. This was your second invitation to a wedding, but the first one where you would stay for the reception afterwards. Georgis and Charoula were getting married. Their whole family was going to be there like they were at Easter when Mummy and Daddy had gone to the house at Sounio and you were still in Mummy's tummy. There was going to be a whole lot of people there interested in seeing what you looked like!


Off we went with Mummy down to Mesogeia and when we arrived, we put you in the sling and went out for the wedding. The bride took her time coming - the usual thing. You stayed with Daddy through the service and watched how he positioned himself for taking the photos of all the service, the exchanging of the rings and the wreaths. During the dance of Iasiah Daddy had to hide a little to avoid the rice being thrown from all directions to avoid you getting hit in your sling.

In between the ceremony and the reception, we had a whole lot of yummy snacks served and Mummy sat and fed you before we went to our table for proper food. Daddy went to get your car-seat from the car and you sat in it quite happily for the rest of the night, swinging and dancing along to songs you liked and just sitting there when the songs did not suit you.



Although you scared us to start with when you had trouble sleeping on account of the loud music, Daddy took you away in the sling and you soon fell asleep. After that, you didn't wake up again until we got home.

Syd Barrett smiles

Hello little one!

I want to tell you a story.
About a little man.
If I can.
A gnome named Crimble Cromble...

etc.

Daddy in quarantine, new soft toy

The day after the trip to Euboea, Daddy woke up feeling all queasy and weak. He even had a temperature, for the first time in ages! Because your immune system is not yet what it could be, Mummy put Daddy on the sofa for three days and called a doctor to come quick, quick, quick! The doctor came (with his bag and his hat) and he knocked at the door (with a rat-tat-tat).



Although he did not shake his head, he did make Daddy stay in bed and wrote a prescription for some pills (pills pills) because he thought he heared something odd when he put his stethoscope to Daddy's back. Daddy stayed at home for three days, you stayed in the bedroom and Daddy on the sofa, and Mummy was running between the two of us like a little electron between two covalent ions with a mask on.



Which means that all photos from this week are by Mummy!



Here's your new friend, a boomorphic stuffed toy with droopy eyes that we are calling "Mookie". Our friend Kelly brought her for you as a gift. When Daddy got better, he played with it too, making moo-ing noises which you found funny.

Visiting the Karstic spring of the Kolethra Resurgence

Weekends start with Telonius, the Robot Turtle: he will destroy you... attack! When you had had your fill of robot attack games, we got ready for the day's big adventure: going to the Kolethra resurgence, a karstic spring in Euboea.

This adventure involved, apart from a 263 km round trip (once again breaking all records for the greatest distance travelled in your life up to today) not only another trip to the beach, but also a trip on a boat, twice, across the stretch of sea called the Southern Gulf of Euboea! Mummy's friend Diamanto came along too. She hadn't seen you since you were very little in the maternity ward, so she was looking forward to it.



Here you are in the boat with a very happy Mummy. There is also a stop motion video showing you on the boat: no picture that Daddy could frame was big enough to show you and the fact that the car was on a boat.



Mummy was less happy after all the filming because with all the opening and closing of doors we woke you up and then you started complaining until we were quite close to our destination, although this was probably because you were hungry again.

Finding the spring of Kolethra was actually quite easy because Daddy's friends had given him good directions. We got there just as the cave divers were coming out of the water and were getting ready to rest. They had had a tough day and were all looking a little worse for wear, but they had made really good progress into the cave and they were happy.



This is the Kolethra resurgence.



And here is Komninos, the cave diver, resting after a tiring dive (1,000m penetration is not an easy thing, you know…), and here is the melon he cut for us together with the survey materials. Can you see the compass and underwater writing equipment?

After you had eaten, we made an al-fresco open-air nappy change in the picnic area where the people come from the local villages on Mayday to celebrate. This is where Daddy's friends the cave-divers camp out when they come to explore. Here are some photos of you with Diamanto and Mummy at the picnic area.






While we were at the picnic area, eating the tasty melon that Komninos cut for us, Mummy discovered that someone had left their hammock there unguarded. Quick as a flash, you were put into the hammock and had a really fun time swinging under the plane trees of the Kolethra spring.







After a while, Elias and Aggeliki set off for the beach at Oxylithos, and we followed them. Elias had come out of the cave first and was better rested. The area did not look too good for a swim, with plenty of reinforced concrete breakwaters rusted and with the iron bars breaking through like the original failed attempts of restoring the marblework on the Acropolis. After seeing the waters, we were convinced the place was perfect for your first dip.




We put you on your 101 Dalmations towel and had a dip in the sea, which was crystal clear and warm enough for us to enjoy it. It is very common for the waters to be clear when there is a mass of limestone behind - the underwater springs keep the waters near the beach refreshed. Daddy took the two pictures above, of you on the beach, but for the rest of the story, we have to look at photos taken by Aggeliki with her DSLR... (yes, Daddy has lens-envy).



These photos are all by Aggeliki: first, you are pulling faces in the hammock.



Next here you are with the reinforced concrete Daddy was complaining about. You are in your swimming trunks with all the happy sea creatures on them...



Here you are with Daddy, before actually getting into the sea. The bokeh is not extreme, but I think you will understand why Daddy misses his Nikon lenses.



Look! Here's Mummy and Daddy holding you just after they had put your legs into the sea. You did not complain too much, but when your bottom got wet, you gave out a little cry and Daddy took you out to dry you and get you out of your wet swimming trunks.



In this last one you are out of the sea, resting with your favourite fingers in your mouth! All ready for the journey back.

The journey back was uneventful, broken by the occasional complaint from you, but nothing too serious. We think that the problem is mainly caused by the difficulty in reaching your mouth with your hand when you are strapped into the seat.



For the record, the journey was a round trip of 263 km - more than you had travelled ever, (again)!

First time to the beach!!

Hello little one. The plan for Saturday 18 July was as ambitious as it was difficult to implement. Daddy's oldest friend, Jockey, was going to be coming to Athens with Lisa, his friend and there was a great opportunity to meet up and see eachother. Lisa lives in the wooded areas around the old temple of Dionysus and we were all going to go up there and then go on to Marathon where the Persians fell foul of Miltiades' cunning and the marshy ground. There's a whole lot of stuff in this area for Daddy and Jockey to get excited about as archaeo-culture-vultures that they are, although Daddy was not so sure about whether they would overcome the inertia.

Before setting off, Daddy read to you about Neolithic stone tools. You had a lot to say about these and found the arguments in favour of specialised production (as opposed to each household producing its own) quite appealing.



After the insightful reading, Daddy played a little with Telonius - everybody's favourite robot turtle...







Daddy is still working on the definitive Telonius video - it should be coming soon. So, after playing, it's time to set off for Dionysos and Lisa and Jockey! When we got there Lisa's family went out of their way to make us feel at home. They have a very nice garden, much bigger than Daddy's with all sorts of plants - some useful some just pretty. We had a very nice lunch - a very nice homemade quiche. Although we didn't mention it, Daddy and Jockey both know that quiche is just another word for omelette pie...

After eating we set out for the beach at Schoinias. Daddy used to go swimming there when he was younger. The waters are nice and warm and the sea is shallow and the pine trees come down almost to the sea itself providing plenty of shade.

When we realised that we could not set up Daddy's camping shade without tent-pegs we folded the tarp over and put you under a tree with Mummy while Daddy went swimming with Jockey and Lisa.





The sea was nice and warm, but we didn't feel right about putting you in it to see for yourself. That has to wait for a different day at a different beach.



Here you are with your nice red hat that Daddy bought for you from that nice man, Johhny Boden.



Here you are with Daddy's friends Jockey and Lisa. Lisa used to work with Aunty Igor, although she knew her by her proper name, Aunty Annika. That was in the days when the Athynew was still a daily newspaper and still belonged to the charming Mr. Lambrakis.



Here are your first photographs near the sea! It's as close as you got that day and much closer than we got at Flisvos.





And here you are again on the tarpaulin with your toys. You had a really good day out. We all stayed out almost until the sun went down when Jockey and Lisa had to go. These were the first people you had met from the UK, where Daddy grew up and where Mummy spent some years. It was fun for Daddy to spend time and talk with Jockey, to remember old times and talk about how everyone from the past is doing now, even though Lisa felt a little left out when we talked about technical webby things like RSS feeds.

Some day, we'll all go together to the UK so you can see for yourself what things are like out there, on the edge of Europe, sandwiched between all-encircling Ocean and the savage tribes of the Hyperboreans.

The trip to Marathon worked as a "dry-run" for the next day's trip to Euboea. You worried us a little with your crying on the way back, but we think it was not so much because of the car but because you were tired and hungry after seeing foreign visitors and the vast expanse of the sea...



In all we covered about 94 km this day - quite possibly more than you have travelled in your whole life!

More shopping

Friday and time for shopping again... the summer sales have opened! This means that Mummy drags Daddy out to Ermou Street so she can show him what to buy. And when they shop at Fokas, Mummy and Daddy are happy because they get bonus points on Daddy's credit card. Something like green stamps for the 21st Century. Daddy is wondering whether by 2030 there'll be a whole new spurious justification for banks to gently push people over the edge with impulse buying. That's just about the time when you'll have a credit card... what fun!

A visit to the new Acropolis Museum

On Wednesday 15 July Mummy and Daddy took you to the new acropolis museum.







The visit to the new acropolis museum was a very exciting proposition for Mummy and Daddy and they were very much looking forward to it. The museum has been hailed as an amazing piece of architecture and design and has been the talk of the town since the opening last month. It was really nice for Mummy and Daddy to see old friends again, like the Rampin horseman, the Kritias Boy and the Blonde Boy. It was especially exciting for them to see what the back of the Kritias Boy and all the other sculpture looks like. In the old museum they were all set up with their backs against the wall, because there was not enough space…



Daddy was very upset by the ban on photography which has been imposed by the museum. He is furious and will write about it in his normal blog. He had wanted to find a nice statue to stand next to it and take a family photo with you every year as you grow older and he grows greyer... it seems this will have to wait now.

You managed to fall asleep as we arrived at the Metro station. Here we are outside the building, all angular and glass and cement.

Inside, you woke up as we reached the top floor and had a look at the bust of Alexander and some of the Roman Emperors they have on the top floor. You liked the frieze of the horsemen as well. One day Daddy will tell you about the horsemen and Marathon and the girl with her bottom showing. The whole museum is made of glass floors, which is great for looking through the floor down to the basement when you are on the top floor.

It was very close to closing time, so we left after visiting the top floor. This is Mummy with the owl of Athena patron goddess of the city, outside the museum.