the impatient cow, page-13

Not us, catlover. We're heretics!
Mum might forego a bit of meat on the Thursday, Friday and Sat. but the rest of go us go on hysterically as before. Father, when he was alive, used to be and all his brothers and sisters (bar one, who lives in Greece and is a theologian) still are vehemently anti religion and saw all this fasting dictated to us by the rich church (who served the rich masters) as tools of power to keep the serfs controlled, hungry and occupied with mortal fear (of hell and disobedience to their lord) so, going to church for anything other than certificates -of which there were many, back in the days when the church ruled the parliament, was... anathema. Real Greek Marxist, the old boy, whose father was a priest! lol. Glad to see his siblings carry on the faith... in atheism.

Mother, though AND, surprisingly Mrs At. insist on us getting together Sat. night. The young ones go to church and come back with the "holy light" -a most dangerous and silly exercise- and then we have a fast-breaking soup, smash coloured and adorned eggs (boiled, of course) and generally have fun... We gather again as a larger group, for lunch, prob. at brother's place, the next day, for a much bigger meal and backslapping. Also great fun.

Nothing like it used to be back in the old days, though, when we first arrived in Oz. Frightened the bejeezus out of our neighbours at first! We'd get a couple or three young lambs from the nearest farm, kill them and have the put on a spit. The whole street would end up in our back yard -back then in Essendon- and the Greek music would be flooding (demolishing) the sound waves...

We're a great deal more civilised these days... maybe a steak or two, a chop here, a chop there but mainly it will be stuffed peppers, eggplant-and-potato musaka, lots of salads, etc, etc, gulped down with some good krasi. A greek cup of coffee with one or ouzos, some baklava, kataifi, touloumbas and then a looooong sleep.
And while the party is going on, we watch the wooing and the cooing of the young! Lots and lots of fun for the oldies.

Thanks for asking catlover!