Greek Night

As regular readers will know, we have a tradition of "safari nights" on our street where we journey from house to house for each course of an n-course meal (depending on the number of houses involved in that particular safari). Each one has a different theme, tonight's being Greek.

As you'll have seen earlier this week, tonight's safari was only organised last Friday, so we've not had long to arrange a costume. I was thwarted at every turn, as I wanted to do something a bit more original than a draped sheet (no offence to draped sheets, or those who wear them!) but every costume I found was either out of stock or not available in my size.

Until I found this. Which gave me the idea I was looking for, and was do-able in the time remaining. Especially since we still had a large cardboard box lying around from the last flat-pack furniture delivery which was the perfect size for the top and bottom plinth.

Cannibalising an old fitted sheet sufficed for the both the column (with Nat's help to spray-on some suitably Doric fluting) and the drapery around the "bust", white body paint turned my exposed body parts to stone and the whole thing was topped off with a "gold leaf" laurel from an online costumier.

Here's the final result.

With a little more time and thought I could probably have made a better job but even so I was quite pleased with it, and the surprise (or even shock in some cases) of the arriving guests was well worth the effort. I chose to stand over in a corner, unmoving, until each group of guests realised it was me.

Walking was somewhat hampered, and sitting impossible, so once everyone had enjoyed the full effect (i.e. shortly after we arrived at the second house) I removed the bottom half of the costume, but remained in "bust mode" for much of the rest of the evening, even though it made negotiating doorways... interesting. Chalk up (haha!) another successful safari night, with buckets of stifado, moussaka and ouzo thrown in. Brilliant.