School

Having been inside a cloud for several days it was rather nice to have our view restored. It's been something of a scene-change while the curtains were drawn and the new set has a snow-covered Parnassus while Evvia and Pelion have received a light dusting. Since I last mentioned Parnassus I have discovered that it can indeed be seen from Kefalonia. We have also realised that we can just see the tip of Mount Kyllini on Peloponnisos a huge distance away.

This week's satin-stitch lesson was held in the icon-painting classroom beside the top church and not in the Sporades Centre for Sustainable Development. I thought that this might suggest that the power-struggle was still bubbling away beneath the surface but I am told otherwise. The icon-painting classroom is far better suited for a small needlework class with a good work table in the centre we can all sit round, reasonable lighting a bit of heating. The Sporades Centre for Sustainable Development is better suited to wine tasting and taekwondo.

The Sporades Centre for Sustainable Development has some table mats with watercolour irises on and I thought I might trace one of these to use as my embroidery pattern. The last-minute venue change meant that I had to source a new pattern very quickly. I found a watercolour Iris on the internet, printed it off large and scuttled off to my lesson.

I need not have worried. Just as Antigone loves satin-stitch, her friend Maria loves knocking out sketches of flowers suitable for embroidery and she had produced a couple of patterns for me to choose from and another couple of patterns for my friend J who is going for the more ambitious pair of slippers.

The icon-painting classroom is very close to Tasoula's shop and amongst other things, Tasoula sells embroidery threads, needles and balls of string. She will be closing her shop forever round about Christmas and is having a clearance sale. Several women of the village are scrabbling to get all the coloured threads they need at half price before Tasoula's shutters close for the last time.

Extra, for the amusement of those who like that kind of thing, is a receipt from a needlework supplier in Volos.