New things

A couple of weeks ago I was in the pub after work. The weather was brilliant. It was during the time when summer briefly and suddenly hit London. We were sitting outside, in a wharf next to the river, enjoying the sun, drinking our pints and having dinner. Two of my friends that were there mentioned that they joined a health centre and that they started a yoga class!
They explained to the rest of the group things they were doing, or tried to do at the class. We did laugh a lot. Maybe it was the beer or the way they were explaining the difficult positions or exercises included. However, as I had mentioned in the past, I always wanted to try yoga. I believe that it would be very beneficial to me. I’m not very flexible (I can’t even bend to touch my toes) and my balance is very bad. I need to tone my core muscles and get rid of my belly. I believe that yoga will help me in all that. I imagine yoga trained people to be really fit and toned.

So, yesterday, one of these friends called me to tell me that she has an extra pass to the health centre and if I wanted to join them in the yoga class! I immediately said yes! I am a bit apprehensive of what I’ll find there. Unfortunately, I’m still a bit stiff from my PT session on Wednesday (mostly triceps and shoulders) and I fear that I might find it even more difficult than normal and ridicule myself. But that hasn’t stopped me in the past! I don't even know what type of yoga I'll be doing!

I’ll let you know how it went.

Ea(s)ter Weekend.

I hope you all had a nice Easter break (for those of you who had one)! For me it was a nice long weekend, but not Easter. The Greek Orthodox celebrates Easter the following weekend. So, technically, for me, it’s Good Wednesday today, but of course I didn’t mind the days off from work. They were a nice much needed break.

We did organise a small gathering on Sunday to celebrate (don’t ask me what exactly)! We invited 8 people over, mostly Greek. Poor JJ had to put up with that. Unfortunately, he had to work till the afternoon, so the invitation was for early dinner. I spent the morning cleaning the place and cooking. I did food for more people than invited, as the custom commands. JJ prepared a potato salad the night before and I made a tray of red sauce baked meatballs, sausages, 2 chickens and a variety of boiled vegetables, salads, dips etc. When inviting people over for dinner, I can’t help it but cook for at least twice as many.

Now you can see the duckie, now...

The evening went smoothly. We laughed a lot, ate a lot, drank a lot. Among the guests, there was a four year old girl demanding our attention. So, we were taking turns to entertain, play with her. I really don’t know how people do it. Maybe I’m too selfish but I’m not sure I could have a child. For a few hours having one can be a blast. Permanently having one must be so much harder. JJ played with her a lot. The language barrier wasn’t really a problem. She’s learning now how to speak English and will attend a grammar school next September. However, that didn’t mean that she didn’t fell in love with JJ and his games.


I think that the guests liked our food. There was a lot of it left, but that was expected. The house is still full, especially with cakes and chocolates. We had bought some for the guests, but they brought even more. It was bliss though. I spent all day yesterday on the sofa with JJ watching DVDs and munching!

We had an extra reason to celebrate. Earlier last week I gave notice to our guest to leave. He was starting to get into our nerves with his constant whining, dramas and questions. He was by far the most tiring guest I ever had. I did allow him to stay a week more than originally agreed, so my conscience is at ease. He’s now staying at a hotel waiting to get approved to move to a flat he found. So, since last Thursday he’s gone!!! It’s so nice having the house just to ourselves again after three weeks!

Favorite Books

While doing my military service in Greece, I had to learn how to kill time. There are many occasions when there is absolutely nothing to do or allowed to do. After lunch time, each soldier is allocated an evening or night service and till that time comes you just wait. Normal recreational activities are not allowed. You are not in holidays. In addition, it is better to stay out of the way of the superiors because if they catch you slacking, they will order you to do something, just for the sake of it. There is always something that needs cleaning, tidying up or even painting. So, it is better to remain quiet, mostly hidden in parts of the barracks were not many people pass. Even when my service time came, there was some more waiting.

You see, in the army, during peace, at night time what I was mostly ordered to do was guard. I needed to spend 3 shifts of two hours each, outside a military warehouse, barracks or an outpost in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t a chance that the ‘enemy’ would attack, so to be honest, I only had to wait there and look alert if the night patrol would show up to make sure I wasn’t sleeping. During these times I had to find ways to entertain myself. Especially the 2 – 4 in the morning shift when everything is quiet and still and I felt so sleepy, it was a torture. What I started doing was replaying movies that I recently watched scene by scene in my head, or create Top 10s.

I was thinking top 10 lists of almost everything. My most favourite one is my top 10 list of books I would gladly reread for any reason. I keep updating this list constantly in my head. The books found in it are not what you’d call masterpieces in the classic term, but they are books that made an impact on me for various reasons. Here it is in random order:

1. Book Thief 
2. The life of Pi
3. The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy
4. Blink
5. IT
6. Me talk Pretty one day
7. Extremely loud and Incredibly Close
8. The lovely bones
9. Magician - Raymond E Feist
10. 1984

Books that didn’t make the list:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A story. I loved it when I read it decades ago. I fear that if I read it now it will lose its magic.

The song of Ice and Fire. That’s amazing storytelling. There are unforgettable moments in these books. However, at times it was dragging soooooo much I wanted to kill myself. If an updated edited version comes along, I might give it another try.