First, I had a reply about the big bird; Lyndon wrote: “This is a grey heron, I can see the underside of the wing in the water as a reflection! It’s in a dark phase plumage so probably this year’s youngster. Unlike western European herons, eastern European grey herons (same species) migrate in the winter south to where there are good fishing grounds. In particular first winter birds leave the breeding grounds early to relieve the pressure on local feeding spots. There are resident populations in western Turkey, Lesbos, Samos and northern Greece.” Thank you!
As you may know this weekend is the festival at Panormitis, and many churches dedicated to St Michael are celebrating. All being well, and weather permitting, we are doing our usual thing of walking up to Kokimidis to catch the end of the service, coffee and then maybe stay for lunch. We tend to bump into the ‘Rainbow regulars’ there, which sounds like a quiz team but is in fact our most loyal customers; fishermen, farmers, builders, and Yiannis is also usually there as are many folk from the village.
The festival; at Panormitis will be going on all weekend with a market, dancing in the evening, a solemn service at the church, a procession with the icon around the grounds and then feasting and merrymaking. Special boat timetables are put on for the weekend, and many people come from far afield to attend the church and service. The really devout leave the boats on their knees to crawl penitent to the church, carrying new brooms to leave behind as offerings. Some people come and stay for a week, or two, in the monastery cells, making the festival weekend the highlight of their pilgrimage.
Other plans for the weekend include watching the rest of ‘24 Live another day’ which we just took delivery of. Here’s a tip for people in the know, a certain Mr. Halkitis makes an appearance as an extra in episode three. I had to stop the DVD, rewind and put it on pause but sure enough, as Jack comes off the underground train, chasing the suspect and crashes through the crowd of commuters, NH is one of the men he shoves out of the way. If you have a copy, and you can be bothered, take a look. It made me wonder how many other people we know have turned up in TV programmes and we’ve not noticed.
What I found interesting about the parts of the show I’ve already seen is how they get from, say, West Ealing to Kennington in three minutes, by car. I wish we’d had that sort of traffic when I was living in London.
But I digress, as usual. Here’s wishing you a good Panormitis weekend and looking forward to seeing you back here on Monday.
