Sunday 15th Oct 2017 07:35

Sunrise – 07:34    Sunset – 18:48    Moon – Day 26
Extras
09:11    11:17
15:15    17:44

Plus some of the baptism, naturally.

Well I wasn't expecting a surprise! In Greece there is a baby-naming protocol to which only the very brave fail to adhere. Everyone has their own first name plus the name of their father's family, however, a child mustn't be given a first name at random, s/he must be named for one of their recent ancestors. This is the protocol;
The first daughter born to any couple should be named after her maternal grandmother.
The first son born to any couple should be named after his paternal grandfather
The second daughter born to any couple should be named after her paternal grandmother and
The second son born to any couple should be named after his maternal grandfather.
Easy peasy! But this does tend to result in small villages having a host of male cousins with identical first and family names which they also share with their paternal grandfather.

Once in a blue moon somebody has a hyphenated first name, I think this only happens with female names. So while it is not unusual in Britain to find a Sara-Jane, or in America a Mary-Beth, and in France either gender, so Jean-Claude, or Marie-France, this is very rare in Greece.

Greek names tend to be either; Biblical, mythological, a virtue or a plant

The full name of our accountant, beautiful bride and new mother, is not simply Maria, as I have led you to believe, but is in fact Maria-Dimitra. Wow! Christian-hyphen-Mythological. We have loads of mythological names in current use here; Achilles; Aphrodite; Athena; Dionysos; but I think that a Christian-hyphen-Mythological name is extremely unusual.

Also, whilst it is not uncommon for certain names to cross the gender-barrier – Demeter – Demetrios or Ioannis – Ioanna, I have never ever once heard of a feminine Dionysos - Dionysia.

So there was I hanging around in the upper gallery of the church snapping away as I do, fully expecting the baby in pink to be called Ioanna because that is what I always understood to be her mum's mum's name, only to hear all three priests call her Ioanna-Dionysia! Goddess of alcohol!

I didn't wait around for the slippery screaming naked baby part of the ceremony, but because this is the first female baptism we have attended I thought I should show you some of the pink paraphernalia.