A lake, a tiny inhabited island in the lake, a fortress, mosques, old churches, nice restaurants, wonderful villages 20 minutes away, this town has everything. It is in the North-West and it is called Ioannina. It’s like Disneyland for grown ups who are interested in history and medieval times. I could live there for a couple of years. We went to see friends -so nice that they gave us their bed and slept on the couch- and it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Our friends have a sweet little girl who would comb my hair into pigtails and follow me in the bathroom to look into my make up bag. It was very exciting as I live with males who consider my make up bag a load of junk. And the mushrooms. The place is full of mushrooms and there were tavernas where all the dishes had some kind of mushroom in them. I felt like a princess (although Greece has lots of mushrooms restaurants and especially tavernas don’t use them much).

I was thinking I should start writing here more often and also reading you more often and generally having a better internet schedule. Not because I have to, but because it makes me feel good and creative and more interesting. I collected all my recipes from my old and abandoned food blog here  where I intend to post all the food issues that occupy my mind.  I thought long and hard about why I had neglected my food blog. Especially because I cook all the time and I take pictures of food non-stop too. The part I did not like about the food blog was writing the recipe and mostly, writing quantities and how much of this or that you need (I am lazy). I seldom follow recipes (only when cooking, because sweet things are a different thing), and if I do I do it to deconstruct them. So, no more quantities and detailed recipes from me.

Some great things are going on work-wise, some new opportunities that came unexpectedly and also our deli is going from strength to strength. There was a small mention in a british paper and we had many many orders and were really busy this week. This is why I neglected this place but don’t we all say that? Life gets in the way of the internet but I will not let it. Especially because a big part of my life and work IS the internet at the moment.

Sometimes, when we have been writing online diaries for a long time, we begin to censor ourselves. We sanitize these diaries / blogs / personal sites because on the way, we have met many people and they would be uncomfortable with what we have to say. But most importantly we censor ourselves because, as in real life, we have formed an online persona, an idealistic version of ourselves that we want to project. Sometimes, this person is inspiring us to do more and better things, because we want to be like them, we want to be them. But often, this image is stifling us because it’s nothing more than another person who is telling us what to do.

So we are the people who read books and make things and meet friends for coffee or go on vacation, or have hobbies and pretty things around the house. Which we of course are, some of the time.

But we do not want to talk -and think- about the person who sits at the computer all day in their pyjamas, or checks email every 5 minutes, or is rude and unavailable, or forgets birthdays and eats greasy crisps for lunch. Strange, because some of the time, we are that person too.

What I want to say is that I will never be cute and this will never be a "pretty" and charming blog. I do not want it to be that way.  I am sensitive, sometimes, but most times I trample on things. So if you ever see cutesy staff here, let me know. It means I am lying to you.

Devi Mood and a couple of other people told me that they cannot leave comments. Apparently, they write the comment but it disappears. Have you encountered this problem? Angel, is this what you were asking me about? If you cannot comment, please  Email me here to let me know. Maybe it’s a plugin that is not working right and I can fix it. But I won’t know until you tell me so.

A quick note to let you know I am okay but: -Running around to enroll my son to English classes, swimming classes, and erm, school. -Going to that concert hall at nights for work and generally getting bored there and reading my book. -Trying to renew my passport so I can go to London next week for a couple of days. I am going to be seeing people about this new business I am setting up with an old –and good- friend. It is going to be an interesting trip but also excruciating for my lazy and leisurely nature. -Getting ready for another old friend’s wedding this Saturday. -Preparing the recipes for the magazine’s next issue. -Translating the silly book. -Uploading all my Typepad blogs (Bread and Butter and One Click a Day) to Blogger Beta. That was hard work. They are linked above where the old sites used to be. I think they look pretty similar to the Typepad ones. Opinions? Because at some point I started thinking I would soon become rich if I saved those 8 dollars per month that subscription was costing me. All the possibilities unfolded before my very eyes. Tonight I am going to visit all your blogs although I take sneak peeks via Bloglines every day. Missed you.

There is a risk I might sound like Pollyanna, but so far I’ve only met nice blogfriends. Yesterday evening I met with Vista at 8 and I returned home at 1:30. And we spent all this time in a café, just talking. We had so much to talk about and I don’t think we covered half of the most important subjects. I know what the cynics –other people call them just reasonable- are going to say. That once you start actually spending time with people, things you don’t like are about to surface. But I’ve had so much trouble finding people to just have a cup of coffee with that I really don’t mind if you prove to be less angelic than you appear to be in your blogs. We could always have a cup of coffee (and then go home and blog about it). P.S Very nice article here: Love me, love my blog

Should I return with a random post as if nothing had happened or should I explain why I haven’t posted in ages. This is what I have been thinking about. I was in a bad mood, and when I am in a bad mood the only thing that relaxes me is playing with code. So there are some new pages on this blog, right above this post and the links to my other two blogs. Not the only thing of course. Other things and people relax me as well, and I met up with Blondie who gave me gifts and bought me my favourite magazine, and somehow it seems okay now.

I have briefly told you about my very nice friend Joanna who I met on Saturday. You may want to read her blog, she is a real journalist with a literary streak. She also bakes great cookies –crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside- the last of which I had for breakfast yesterday. She is funny and she is fun. She laughs a lot. She makes you feel comfortable. Thank you Blogger, thank you Internet, thank you Internet provider.

And today I am going to meet another blogfriend who is in fact one of the first people who started visiting this blog, back in the days when it was a humble standard Blogger template without all the trimmings, without any photographs and without any comments. It is blown out of all proportion now, the trimmings, NOT the comments. I am going to be good (or bad, depending on your view of things) and keep posting without the usual weekend break. I am going to start sleeping better. I am going to be calmer. I am going to be crunchier on the outside and softer on the inside, just like Joanna’s cookies.

This is a post for a friend who is sad. I want to let her know she is not going to be sad forever. I want to tell her she is a courageous and real woman. I say real, because many people who find friends and lovers on the internet, do not grasp the fact that it is eal, flesh and blood people they are talking to. And so, they go on to treat them like URLs they can delete at whim. They are not URLs dammit. Online relationships are real and cause as much joy and as much pain as offline ones. Get it through your heads. My friend is going to be fine because she is loved by many.