Our next door neighbour is italian. Shes a good cook. But her husband is crazy. He cut down half our trees because there was bushfires in Victoria and he got scared that his house would burn down because of our trees. I think he's just old and confused. He's in a nursing home now. His wife lives in their 5 bedroom, two story, marble staircase, 3 loungeroom, 2 kitchen house, which is next door. Its absolutely woggy inside.
But part of me likes woggy, just because it reminds me of my yiayia (grandma). I pretty much spent the first 4 years of my life living at her house. She is the best ever! And even better, I'm her favourite out of all the grandchildren as I have her name. There are benifits in being named after your grandmother. I see it as an honour as well. Though I may not look like her or have inherited her blue eyes, her exccentric dressing or her dressmaking skills I want to be like her. She endlessly serves, without complaint (well she complains about my papou but hes a grump so I dont blame her) and for a woman brought up in the 30s and 40s she is very strong minded, she knows what she wants. She was willing to give up the Greek dream of having a family and go against the expectations of her own family, to study nursing and become a nun to help those less fortunate. She is a woman who endured German occupation of Greece and saw the atrocities they did to the Greek people and she still puts on a brave face everyday. She just had her gallbladder taken out and yet she was happy to sit with me and tell me off for my (lack of) sewing skills, and then stopped to help me. She is the most incredible woman I have ever met and I hope one day that I will be just like her. Tacky clothing and all :)
This is my yiayia (and papou)
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