Sunday Souvla...

You will have gathered from the absence of any blog last night that it was a late one - in fact it was a very late one - we didnt actually get to bed until 1.00am this morning!

It was a DIY day yesterday - John changed the light switch in our bedroom so that it had a small neon to show us that is was on as we keep going to bed and forgetting it until I am woken by some monster beetle crashing against the door mesmerised by the light.

We also built the false ceiling which is hiding the storage that we have put up in the corridor between the two bedrooms - and I thought I had seen the last of the wood stain but OH NO that was my little job yesterday - deep joy.  Just when I had clean and neat fingernails!!

We had been invited down into the Village by our neighbours Pam and George who are here on holiday from London.  Their daughter and son-in-law and three children had just flown back home.

Our local Taverna Stathmos was putting on a special evening which started with Bingo at 6.00pm (we gave that a miss although John thought it might be a laugh and 'educational'). 

Then at 8.00pm music was promised together with food.

We started with drinkies at 11b - rather large red wines for Pam and I which went straight to our heads!!!  We managed the moonlit walk down into the village and found Stathmos rocking like we had never seen before.  We managed to find ourselves a seat and were greeted by Bambos and Sylvia - it does help that George speaks the lingo!!

First to dance were the children from the village: from the little tackers to the young adults.  They were all well into it and it was good to see their enthusiasm and energy channelled into something positive.

Stathmos was serving a buffet which was fantastic.  There was so much to choose from but the highlight was the souvla (chunks of meat cooked on the barbeque).  The souvla was hot, well seasoned and very tender.  This was followed by plates of fresh fruit, stafili (grapes), karpoosi (water melon) and piponi (ordinary melon).

 Next to dance were the 'professionals' one of whom we recognised as a forestry warden who had been drinking in Stathmos on Friday.  They dragged Bambos in on the act.  He is clearly quite an accomplished dancer himself and between them they put on quite a show. 

It was turning into the best night we have had in the village - it was great to see people of all ages enjoying themselves and enjoying good food.

As the evening progressed we imbibed more of Bambos's home made red wine and in George and John's case shots of Zivania!

(Zivania (also Zivana) (Greek: Ζιβανία, Turkish: Zivaniya) is a traditional Cypriot alcoholic beverage. Zivania is a distillate produced from the pomace of grapes that were pressed during the wine-making process mixed with high-quality local dry wines produced from local grape varieties of Cyprus such as Xynisteri and Mavro. The distillation of zivania takes place in special traditional apparatus similar to those used for the production of Tsikoudia in Crete. Zivania is characterized by its taste and aroma. It is colorless and pleasantly alcoholic with a light aroma of raisins. Its typical alcohol content is 45% by volume. Zivania contains no sugars and has no acidity.

Suitably relaxed we were encouraged to join in with the traditional dancing.

John cut some serious moves with a skinny blonde and I was dragged round by Sylvia the landlady!!  We staggered home and finished off with a nightcap at ours looking out at the lights of Polis twinkling in the distance.  A grand night had by all although Pam may regret the amount of red wine she drank and the fact that she was dancing with a very bad knee!!