Saturday, March 27, 2010
PART 2 (???)
PART 2 OF A USUAL SCHOOL DAY....????!!!
If you ever set your foot in my door at this time in the morning (after school run), you would be(like me) in 'shock and awe' and wondering if the place had been burgled. That's how bad it is. I really could do with a small tractor with a scoop on the back, just to go around picking things up, ranging from cornflakes that have been tread into the rugs, Polly Pocket (every Mothers horror) and discarded clothes....a mountain of them.....on floors and chairs, and i thought girls were supposed to be tidy???
It's no wonder i feel the need to get out for coffee (and air)...so fast most days!!! The sooner the better....so as not to look at it!!!
Coffee mornings, well with beautiful and funny friends like mine (you have to have a certain personality to live on this island, and a good sense of humour!!!), it's a bit like 'Friends' meets 'Sex in the City'...meets 'Desperate Housewives' although 'Desperate' only in the sense that there are not enough hours in the day.....and most us are pretty desperate to get off 'The Island'....for a few hrs at least. You get to the point where 25KM of beautiful landscape, sea and mountains just doesn't do it for you anymore....you want Marks & Spencers, Tesco's and a few wines/pints or pints of wine even, at your (old) Local Pub!!!
BY THE WAY, most of us are seriously depressed by now and eating stones.....!!!(but, we always find money for a cup of coffee....somehow....!!!)
MARCH is usually a difficult time for 'us' Islanders ( who's businesses are only open from May-October, even though we still have to pay rent, taxes,and now more taxes, and probably more taxes on top of those taxes...!!!) and insurance...which is astronomical....so are pockets are pretty empty and we're hanging on just with our Visa cards...counting the days till the planes start coming!!!!
Usually (after coffee) i am then seen sprinting over someones grass....main square...car park... in the hope that i will not get reprimanded (again) for being slightly late to pick up one of the children from school.
LUNCHTIME in our house you need a microphone to speak, but ear plugs i usually find more useful!!!....You're lucky you actually get chance to eat, because it's pass this, pass that...up and down to the kitchen.....to get what I've forgotten to put on the table, left in the microwave or fridge!!! Or sometimes it's still at the shop...butchers.....mini-market etc etc!!!
Afternoons, depending on the weather and how much energy is left after exhausting housework and endless drinking of coffee, can be spent at the park. If only they would supply headgear and knee pads, as my children seem to be always falling over and again rescue remedy comes in handy as does plasters and antiseptic cream. The beach and the sea is another option,and usually safer, which we are lucky to have so close by, and are surrounded by it!!!
Home to eat (again)....play Monopoly/Snakes and Ladders etc etc...watching the clock on countdown to bedtime. BUT you've still got bath time to survive yet!!! God help you if it's a hair wash night....you beginning to think that once a month is quite acceptable, natural oils and all.
Is it no wonder by the time you read your little ones a story, you're lucky you don't fall asleep before Mr McGregor gets to the Greenhouse....but you can't as you've still got to pick up/take your other children somewhere, and all you want is a relaxing bath and a (few) chilled glass(es) of wine.
But no, you force yourself into doing your Wii Fit.....you feel mildly chuffed when the instructor tells you, you have fantastic abbs, and you get so good at the step, you are able to write your shopping list for the next day at the same time!!!
NEXT comes the ironing, which if you have something decent to watch it's not so bad....(but it's a bit like sex at our age....it's not so bad once you're doing it, but the thought of it sometimes can be daunting!!!)
Although you love your husband/partner, by the time everyone is finally in bed, and you have some 'me' time...to perhaps obsess over the latest Vampire book, or read magazine articles on 'How to Survive the Menopause'....and you've had a few glasses of wine to unwind, all you really want to do is SLEEP!!!
SO ON THAT NOTE...GOODNIGHT ....but (P.S) i have a New Blog called 'A little GREEK ISLAND' - photographs and diary. The reason for this is i'm hoping to be offered free coffee from all the places i mention....(i told you, times are tough!!!)
.....
FASHION TIPS/BEAUTY
Summer is on it's way, AND you can always change your religion and wear a Burka/Full body dress if you've left it too late for that ideal bikini body...!!! Also you would save vast amounts on sunscreen protection.
NEWS - HONESTLY- HAVE NOT HAD MUCH TIME TO WATCH/LISTEN.....too busy with other things??? But will have a read up now, whilst waiting for my daughters to come back from a nightclub/school party.
Lots of Love
Tracey XXX
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Clive Owen :: Screen Talk
CLIVE OWEN...MMMMMM
PLEASE IF YOU HAVE ANY MEN YOU WANT FEATURED....GO TO facebook The NOT so Greek Goddess (fan) Group and discussions it's all a bit of fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
UP...UP....AND AWAY !!!
AND no matter how organised i am (or try to be), whilst half running and dragging the kids after me, i have to do it all backwards as i've usally forgotton something, or lost my keys/purse/tissues/phone....!!! and of course MY HEAD!!!
It's no wonder you want to punch the air/do a silly dance once they are behind those school walls. The relief the emphoria!!! The fact that you love your children 'more than space', but you really need some of your own......Then you get in the car and drive, the silence is deafening, the windows down, the breeze in your hair and you can sing...and it's not Old McDonald....!!! You drive on auto-pilot, so busy thinking about what you're going to cook today
a) something quick and easy.....as you are going out for coffee
b) something quick and easy...as you are going to be at home cleaning/on Facebook
(all fresh of course, and healthy....!!!)
that you realise you are outside your front door and you've forgotton to stop at the supermarket, butcher, greengrocer....baker!!!....so off you go again!!! Back to the butchers where the men are talking about (the football results), the greengrocers (where the women are talking about the delights they are serving up at lunch time) and the bakers...where any gossip goes!!!
You finally make it home (again), laden down with the bags and the receipts...which of course are piling up and taking over your drawers....cupboards...and...houses!!! What we are actually going to do with them who knows, another aim from the Greek Government to make sure nobody is fiddling them??? I even got a petrol receipt yesterday, the first time ever.....!!!...I'm not sure our accountant is going to be too happy when i give him the suitcase of receipts i've collected so far....and thats just milk and yoghurts for a family of 6.....!!!
PART 2...will follow....Coffee Mornings....Afternoon frenzies and BEDTIME!!!
SO enough of my mornings....lets talk about....???
What't in the news??? Ummm again scandals, politics and possibly World War 3. I sat watching a debate on Greek TV last night comparing the Prime Minister of Germany, to Adolf Hitler....!!!
They've really take the Acropolis comment to another context....!!!
FASHION bold colours are in so, avoid block and go for patterns if you are on the larger side, helps confuse the eye...It's that time of year when you wished you started your diet earlier, because it won't be long until we have to get our arms and legs out. Scary experience, and daunting for a few days, and you feel completly naked without layers and lycra!!!
ITS 25th MARCH TOMORROW - INDEPENDEANCE DAY IN GREECE
(It's also a religious day too - Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, Evangelismos Day)....
A National Holiday, on this day in 1821, the Greek Flag was hoisted in defiance to the Turks.
It is a day where there are church services, parades and wreath laying in memory of those who lost their lives for their country.
Today in the schools children sang about the Revolution, poems were read, and history is remembered!!!
My daughter read a poem today, a comment was made by the ladies in front about a boy wearing short sleeves....(it was a beautiful day)....how 'dropeeeeee'!!!! (terrible) it was, my daughter was also the other one....the fact they only told us the day before what they needed to wear wasn't exactly ideal.....it was lucky i found something white!!! (which didn't stay white for very long, must get some Vanish!!!)
I'm hoping to get the other computer working as now it's officially Easter Holidays in Greece, and i doubt i'll get much chance to be blogging....far too many things to do and make!!! Traditional cheese pies, biscuits, dying eggs....and of course Hot Cross Buns!!! Will cover all the reasons why they do this in my next blog, all i know is that usually my next door neighbour brings me the cheese pies, which i manage to pass off as my own.....the biscuits we've made and eaten several times so there is never any left by Easter, and the eggs i've not only dyed every wooden spoon in the house red, my hands, and usually every saucepan in the cupboard!!!
I LOVE EASTER IN GREECE.....It really is wonderful....(especially if you try and forget about all those fluffy lambs and sheep you've been feeding for the last few months)...that you'll be serving for Easter Sunday. I always make Lasanga....!!! A big cow seems soooo much less vunerable!!!
Lots of Love
Tracey XXX
Friday, March 19, 2010
BRAIN FOG /DOCTORS & POLITICIANS!!!....
It's been another fun filled week in the life and times of theNOT so Greek Goddess...it has been spent at The Doctors, where i seem to have spent looooooong hours waiting, and missing out on valuable coffee time. My children aren't really sick (just snuffles), but I was told one had a 'mass' (i almost fainted), but translated basically meant some meat in her passage!!! (enlarged adenoids).... having sat for 2 hrs waiting for x-rays, with most of the island. My children kept the masses entertained by sticking their fingers up their noses and singing xmas carols....ahhhhhh and all i could think about was how i could distract the large lady in front (who needed everything done) so i could push past and ... Of course i knew this would be like trying to cross a barbwired electric fence, and i had no chance....especially as she had come all the way from the village (10 mins down the road!!!)
I then spent hours at another Doc...and then another....and then another.....!!! Finally getting an appointment in a months time, with a Doc which I later found out can't help me anyway. Funny isn't it, we live on an island where medicine was born, The Island of Hippocrates....and the first hospital, and from most angles they don't seem to have actually progressed very far....shock treatment, instead of snakes seems to be the use of a sharp instrument before the anaesthetic has had chance to work!!! (Also met another British lady who had encountered the same nasty surgeon who removed my mole...she had her stomach slashed open though....even worse...ouchhhhhh!!!!)
As for politicians....(especially candidates for elections hoping to get votes) well, they certainly know how to dodge questions and smile alot when the camera is around! They may not be 'Harry Potters' and create magic, but they do seem to know how to suck blood out of most of us (and money), so wouldn't a vampire be more appropriate? Or is that comparison too nice, perhaps a tick would be better!!! WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU VOTE.....!!! (Tea & biscuits and they think we are hooked!!!)......WE HAVE THE MONEY.....!!! Really surprising, considering the scale of the economic crisis, has the local council being playing the 'Stoixima' too??? Everyone else on the island (male), seems to have a mad obssesion about it, and it won't be long before there are no Cafe Neons....and only gambling outlets....they are the only ones making money....whilst the Greek population are losing theirs hoping for a miracle!!!
I actually got out to attend a meeting this week, and not only realised that when the cameras for the local television were around, i was caught talking about the joys of Blue Vodka...and then went on to spill all the hot water over the counter, and tried to mop it up with napkins, and managed to knock over the coffee too, and then after all that there was no milk left!!! You see, i don't get out very often, so i was even more amused that my friend had saved me a seat ( right at the front....and there was me just wanting to blend into the background and have a sleep), but no, next to the oldest swinger in town.....who kept asking me personal questions and getting up all the time to refill his cup and plate. Guess, i would have been joining him, had it been wine on offer and spring rolls???
So an eventful week, followed by a wonderful treatment, an aromatherapy massage. A beautiful present from my friend the therapist herself. Where i could stretch out and be pampered and tell her all my woes. I was there for a while!!! Infact, Miss P should actually charge extra for this service, not just a massage bed, but a couch too.....she is not just excellent with her hands, but a great listener and would make a great shrink!!!
I had a fit of the giggles though, when i realised i could not actually move my arms and turn over quite so easily or daintly.....and could see myself having to explain that one to the teachers at school why i was late again....Instead, i just arrived flushed and greasy from the beautiful smelling oils......!!!
I must admit i did shave my legs and put some moisteriser on before hand, incase the bristles attacked her hands, and i am very shy about taking my clothes off infront of anyone....and spent half an hour trying to find some decent nickers that weren't grey/saggy and with holes. I did notice that they have become soo big lately that they really should be ironed!!! I also considered wearing an all-in-one and refusing to take it off!!!
TIP OF THE DAY/WEEK
If you have one of those awful spots, that you've tried everything to cover....concealer, foundation, powder....and a paper bag, then just count to ten and get a big pair of earings....i mean huge the bigger the better. No-one will notice your spot believe me (or the paper bag!!!)
CAN YOU TELL A BOOK BY ITS COVER, OR THE STATE OF A HOUSE BY SOMEONES HANDS????
Seriously cracked & bleeding, split nails & smelling of chlorine
Obviously a house that is spotless and should be featured in 'Beautiful Homes'....you can eat your food from the windows and floors!!!Slightly dry with reasonable nails.........generally clean and tidy, but cleaning is not the major priority and perhaps coffee mornings and social networks are!!!
Smooth, manicured and smelling of roses....
they've obviously got a cleaner!!!....The house is waxed and polished to perfection .....ORthe women of the house couldn't care less and you can write your name in the dust and she never cleans..............????
So if you can tell (possibly) the state of house by your hands then, what about your car???.....God, if that was the case anyone who's seen mine would not even step across the threshold....Infact I could hold a car boot sale with what's in it, not even intentionally.....!!!Children are back....so back to the ironing board for me....catch you later.....
Headlines....Britain is hotter than Greece.....??? I can believe it, it's been freezing here the last few days.
Lots of Love
Tracey XXX
PS MY SPELLING CHECKER IS NOT WORKING AT ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL !!!
DAVID BECKHAM
Monday, March 15, 2010
zac effron
Sadly, i am old enough to be his mother.... :(
Sunday, March 14, 2010
SUICIDAL BLONDE???!!!
OMG is that i found the best 'hottie' video clip with all my favourites in one room....i've watched it soo many times and it brings sunshine & smiles, amongst other things!!! (and pleasant dreams). Take a look, it's on Youtube 'The Handsome Mens Club'......you're watching it...first comes McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey...and then and then and then and then.......!!! and it's funny too.
TUPPERWARE
My week flew past with the usual flow of coffee and great friends, but with the added addition of plastic!!! I cannot believe i now get excited about little boxes that seal and gadgets that do amazing things (and yes it was tupperware party and not an Ann Summers one!). When you start getting enthusiastic about such things, you suddenly become aware of how much you have matured, both inside/outside...well that's if you didn't keep getting told of for talking/fondling items/& making rude jokes!!! You also have to be pretty well off to be able to afford it these days...
The diet was going remarkably well (day 2) until the chocolate tarte came out....well it did have fruit on the top, possibly could be counted as one of my daily 5???
FOOTBALL
It seems to have been on every night this week???..................which is fine when you've got a good book but not when you just want to veg on the sofa and stare mindlesly at anything other than men in shorts however fit they are....running around chasing a ball. Sorry but those days are over for me, i have lost all enthusiasm for this sport, they get paid far too much money!!!
--------------------
I finally finished the last book in the vampire series....and dozed off to sleep dreaming of floating through forests & being surrounded by them.....Isn't it strange that since Twilight, instead of women having nightmares we now have fantasies....and instead of running away, we now want to be bitten!!! "Yes bite me, bite me....arhhhhhhh"!!!
I have hundreds of books upstairs on the 'to read' pile, but nothing i doubt that compares to these....I am feeling at a loss now, you can't wait to find out the ending but when it's finished you feel like all the air has gone out of you, deflated and depressed and wanting more.
NEWS IN BRIEF - actually it will be (brief) as i am now laptopless.....(another reason for feeling slightly suicidal)....the 'ghost' dropped it, and the monitor is now damaged, so it will only work via another screen on a desk.....just not the same is it? Once you've had one, it's kinda hard to go back to the desk....i got used to 'working' in the 'field' /reading newspapers online all over the house, but especially snuggled up in bed & i miss it...sob, sob.
So quickly, entertainment wise, because everything else is soo bloody depressing....(i.e all the new VAT and prices in Greece)....and all the men who can't keep their pants on and.........
So I'm pleased to announce that it's not too long away till Sex in The City film no 2 will be released (ok another 2 mths)...but something to look forward to in bleak times, and plenty of hot men of course!!! Chris North, Jason Lewis and Max Ryan...and many more.
Also for Robert Pattinson (Edward) fans, in his latest film he appears 'steamy in the shower'!!!
and whilst we are talking of men, the average British male is said to be spending 13 hrs a week as a domestic god, that is quite impressive......with taking out the rubbish as the 'top' job & carrying the shopping from the car....Helloooo, since when is that a domestic job....what about the real heavy work....and how many hours does the average 'man' spend in the bathroom....but does he ever clean it???
Also articles i quickly looked at were 'How to transform your outfit from school run to working mum'....??? Well that's easy, just take off your heels & put on some rubber gloves....!!! (in my case)....
AND last, I cannot believe it is a whole year since Jade Goody died, how terribly sad, but on a positive note 400,000 women have been screened for cervial cancer, many of these women wouldn't have if it wasn't for her....she has saved no doubt, hundreds of lives & has continued doing so after her death. My thoughts go out to her family and her little boys.....
AND ON A HAPPIER NOTE...WELL....I HAVEN'T GOT ONE.....IT'S MONDAY TOMORROW AND I HATE MONDAYS...........!!! XXX
Lots of Love
Tracey XXX