A bit of white stuff

Well, we're still not really getting into regular updates but we have a few things to write about and here's something for starters.

Between Christmas and New year we spent a few days in the mountains of the Peloponnesos in a lovely apartment complex. Turned out that it was owned by a good friend of some of our friends from church in Athens, so it was good to make some links there. We liked the apartment and the location so much that we'll be back.

It was in a lovely gorge, not far from the main ski resort in southern Greece and part of the plan was to see some snow, which we did by driving quite high up to the ski slopes. For much of the winter the snow hangs around much lower down but there'd been a few warm days so it was really only the ski runs themselves which had snow.

Anyway, we got a toboggan for a few euros for one of the days. Joel and I headed into the mist for a bit of zooming down the hill (Hannah lasted a few minutes before getting too cold) while Dawn had to stay in the (hired) car with a sleeping Esther. We hadn't agreed where to meet up when our fun was over so Dawn texted me let me know the girls were awake and ready to head back to Kalavrita town for lunch. The only problem was I'd left my specs in the car, not wanted to crush them in any toboggan/cliff disasters that Joel and I might have had. You may know that I really need them for reading, being longsighted, and I couldn't make a single thing out on the text.

I've never been particularly bothered about the ageing process but this tickled me. My wee five year old had to read the text aloud to me. A healthy reminder of mortality.



As Joel and I were alone on the slope it was a bit tricky to get decent footage of his intrepid sledding. I considered just letting him go and filming 'til he disappeared from sight, but opted instead to get him to hold the brake until I was a bit downslope then hope he could steer straight into me. Have a look at the short clip. For a few seconds just before this was taken the fog vanished, revealed a stunning, sparkling mountainside. We'll be back, making sure we get some clear days. (The photo on our last prayer letter was of this mountain from afar).

There's other stuff to blog about that short trip which hopefully we'll get round to in the next couple of days, including a little-known but moving WW2 episode from the town of Kalabrita itself.

Christmas Celebrations Part 2

So, below is the Sunday School Christmas Celebration. We'd had real trouble trying to get there (We'd decided to hail a taxi rather than get the bus/metro because it would be 'easier' but then found that there were no taxis free. We caught a bus and tried to get a taxi from the centre, which also took AGES!) and arrived 10 minutes before the start, and therefore 20 minutes late! As a result we bustled the kids into the back room where the others were and they were not interested in putting on angel robes and performing. They'd been quite reluctant in rehearsal, so we probably should have anticipated the outcome. It was a bit frustrating though. We decided to stay and watch proceedings. So, here are a few clips edited together to give you a flavour of the Sunday School production and Joel and Hannah's contemporaries' role in it.

Christmas Celebrations Part 1

Kαλή Χρονιά! Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s been nearly two months since we last blogged – so much to say, so little time…
So, first of all, an update of Christmas. Term finished for all of us on 21 December and we had a few Christmas celebrations to attend around that time. Hannah’s school had a little Christmas party just for the kids, whilst Joel’s school had a presentation. He had been given a poem to recite and was to play a baker in the little Christmas skit (no lines, just a bit of movement to music with all the other kids), I say ‘was’. He wasn’t up for doing any of it, as it turned out. He had learnt the poem and we were all looking forward to the little performance, but as we entered the school he didn’t want to go in, didn’t want to get into his ‘costume’, didn’t want to take part at all. He’s quite a literalist, our Joel: he won’t ‘role-play’ for long and generally insists on being ‘just Joel’ (not a dog, or a lion, or a shopkeeper, or Super-Joel!). I’ve edited together some of the high- and low- lights of the afternoon… I think it speaks for itself.







I’m also putting together a similar video of the Sunday School Christmas celebration at church (which saw both Hannah and Joel opt out of being angels on the night of the performance!), so that will be on soon too, with a bit of background writing by me! Jonathan is going to put something on here about our Christmas Day celebrations (all good) and our time away in Καλάβριτα (Kalavrita) (which was also good!)… Needless to say there are issues with Joel in terms of his confidence at school (and also his behaviour – more about that another time), and we’d value your prayers for us, for wisdom and love in knowing how to help him, and especially for him, thanks.