Calm seas and balmy breezes

No one can quite believe the spectacular change in the weather in the last few days. We have gone from howling gales to calm seas and balmy breezes as though someone flipped a switch. Quite how long this will last no one knows but we are all making the most of it while it lasts. This is always a tremendously busy month and with Easter coming early this year it did not help anyone's maintenance schedule to have the wettest and windiest March in years pounding the island and adding countless broken windows and flooded rooms to the job list.

Temperatures are in the high teens and low twenties although indoors it is considerably cooler as it takes a while for these old stone buildings to heat up. We wear the usual five layers in the office and start peeling them off on the way home. The combination of late rains and warm weather has the weeds growing before our eyes, much to the enjoyment of the donkeys and mules that carry building materials and rubble up and down the Kali Strata. (See picture.)

Yachtsmen and householders preparing for the season are the first visitors to the island and we had the first day-trippers on Sunday, in the form of a small chartered ferry from Tilos, visiting Symi for, of all things, a stag party excursion! No, I have no idea how they amused themselves but they left mid-afternoon, presumably in search of something a bit more exciting than bean soup (it's Lent so the tavernas and even the gyros bars are on fasting menus).

There are plenty of hawkers around, selling cheerful spring bedlinen, cleaning materials, lace curtains by the metre and light weight children's clothing. They shout their wares through loudhailers as they grind up and down the hills in overloaded vans, stopping at random to allow housewives to inspect the goods.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com