Posies of wild flowers

It is a drizzly day with a nasty little crosswind whipping across the harbour. The Symi ferry has just come in alongside with a bump and huddles of damp tourists with umbrellas are trotting dutifully along with quay, following their respective guides. The Panormitis bus is waiting for the crowds to disperse before setting off on its lunch time shuttle run across the island to monastery. It's quite a popular service these days, particularly with the walkers who come at this time of the year as it saves them a climb and as, the days are still quite short, means they can cover more ambitious routes and be sure of getting home before dark. With a little careful planning you can catch the first one, which leaves Yialos just before 8 in the morning, hop off wherever suits you on the plateau, walk down to Panormitis in time to catch the bus back at midday or in the late afternoon so you don't have to tackle all those switchbacks, and hop off again on the Vigla if you want to do the descent to Chorio and Yialos on foot. A nifty way of 'walking' to Panormitis and back without actually doing any serious uphill bits.

A few years back, when the town hall upgraded the benches in the harbour, they put those of the old ones which were still serviceable at various view points above the town, on the way to Agios Konstantinos. The views from up there are quite spectacular, particularly at sunset, as, depending on where one stops, one can see right across to Datca, Nissyros and Tilos in one direction and both bays and Bozburun in the other. One does sometimes have to ask the goats to move over a bit though. Oh, and keep an eye on your picnic - they are particularly fond of rigani chips.

It is another long weekend as Monday is the 1 May bank holiday. Fortunately as this year it doesn't clash with anything it shouldn't set off the same rash of strikes that we experienced this time last year when Easter Sunday fell on 1 May and no compensatory bank holiday was proclaimed.

So, in honour of spring and May Day, when it is traditional in this part of the world to put posies of wild flowers on the front doors, here is a picture of a field of daisies, taken at the dip in the road in Chorio, just opposite the old football pitch.



Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
The Symi Visitor

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A few years ago one of the British newspapers described Symi as a place where Easter comes with a Bang! This still applies and those visitors who came expecting something more than hot cross buns and foil wrapped chocolate bunnies were not disappointed. The municipal celebrations on Easter Sunday included lambs spit roasted in the town square, traditional dancing and a fire work display. The 'Guy Fawkes' character in the out and about photos is Judas who is burned in effigy on Easter Sunday afternoon.

As Easter Sunday fell on St George's Day this year, all the Georges, and anyone else whose name day fell in Lent, celebrated on Easter Monday (known as Bright Monday here). Quite a lot of businesses are still closed today and the harbour is fairly quiet as the weekenders have now departed.

Weather wise it is typical changeable April stuff with everything from mud rain and sandstorms to clear but chilly breezy conditions like today. Temperatures are between 18 and 22 degrees so it is worth finding a sunny spot out of the wind. The long range forecast shows another plume of sand welling up out of Africa and heading this way later in the week.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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It is Greek Easter this weekend

It is still quite hazy from the sandstorm on Wednesday but the wind has changed to a chilly northerly and the sky is starting to clear. The picture is one I took on Wednesday afternoon, as I walked home - sorry about the uninspiring view of the new car park excavations in the foreground, but I doubt if many of you have seen the Vigla looking quite like that!



For those of you who don't already know it, it is Greek Easter this weekend. We could hear the Maundy Thursday services from our farm last night as many of the churches have outside speaker systems these days. Chanting, accompanied by loud bangs and explosions, continued until late in the night and resumed again today. These are not the celebratory fireworks of the Resurrection but have their origins in the belief that the earth is vulnerable to evil during the period between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection and that Satan can be frightened away by loud noises. This used to be the beating of drums and pots but these days crackers and dynamite have taken over. Easter in these parts is not just an excuse to eat lots of chocolate and many people do actually go to church for the solemn services as well as the celebratory ones.

There are many Greek visitors on the island for the long weekend and yesterday evening, while watering the bottom potato field in the gathering dusk, I found myself explaining how to find the ruins of ancient Drakos to some puzzled Athenians who had, quite naturally, expected the line up of official signs to lead to something rather more promising than my fence. They agreed that it would be best to try again with a bit more daylight in hand and are probably picking their way through the daisies even as I write this.

We wish all our Orthodox visitors and readers a blessed Easter.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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Geckos behind every picture

The 18 hours of rain we had on Friday certainly perked up the plants. We enjoyed our first globe artichokes from the garden on Sunday, and very good they were too, simmered Greek style with fresh broad beans, lemon juice, spring onions and dill - all home grown of course. And a dish of those tiny pearly new potatoes that only those of us who grow our own are able to enjoy... (Ah the smugness of the allotment gardener, I hear you cry, but this is, after all, one of the reasons why we live here!) It looks as though we will also have a fantastic almond crop this year, if our furry friends don't find them first. It is not just the vegetation that is erupting with enthusiasm. The mosquitoes and flies are out in swarms, as are their natural predators. There are lizards on every stone wall, geckos behind every picture and spiders stringing amazing webs through the trees. I haven't seen any snakes yet this year but that is only a matter of time.


Almond blossom


It is quite hazy today with a lot of dust in the air, making the sky quite pink. The breeze is from the west and is just enough to ripple the water but not enough to fill the sails of the yachts, most of which seem to be favouring their engines as a means of propulsion. There is certainly quite a lot of yachting movement at the moment, mainly charter fleets heading to their starting points for the season and yachts that have overwintered in Turkey and have to leave after 6 months as their papers have expired.

On the Greek Easter front I have noticed this year for the first time that ready-dyed hard-boiled eggs are now for sale in the shops. There is a choice between two kinds - the traditional plain red ones and some rather alarming looking multicoloured green and orange pearly ones.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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A time of serious fasting

It has been raining steadily since last night. The whole country is under a slow-moving blanket of cloud and the forecast is for rain and thunderstorms until at least tomorrow evening. Fortunately so far it has been fairly clean stuff, not the usually liquid mud that is typical of this time of year. We had quite a heavy dust storm with strong winds on Wednesday but there are no gales forecast for our area over the next few days. Out in the more exposed parts of the Aegean it is a different story.

While the Protestant/Catholic world might be well into the hot cross buns and chocolate bunnies by now, here in Greece we are heading into 'big week', a time of serious fasting prior to Easter next weekend. At the same time the rush is on to complete the monumental quantities of baking, cleaning and whitewashing that Greek Easter entails. Wheels of cheese, kilos of flour and sugar and trays of eggs are carried home for cheese pies and other traditional delicacies. The whiff of chlorine bleach and furniture polish competes with the last of the spring flowers and the scent of orange blossom. Someone dropped a bag of whitewash at the Pedi road junction, resulting in an interesting trail of tracks in three directions. A solitary elderly municipal employee is working his way systematically down the Panormitis road, clearing the verges of daisies and thistles and picking up litter. By this morning he was nearing the Kampos bus stop. One thing about weeding in this climate - do it now and it does not need to be repeated until November! The litter, on the other hand, is an on-going problem.

We wish all our readers and visitors a happy and safe Easter this weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
The Symi Visitor

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It has been a sombre week

Yesterday, just after the Symi docked at 1 pm, we were aware of a tremendous noise outside our window. It is unusual to hear sirens wailing in a small place like Symi. The ambulance and police vehicle were stuck behind a large lumbering lorry which was making its way round the narrow section of the harbour before the road widens to two lanes and goes up the hill. Whether the delay would have made any difference whatever we do not know but we quickly learned the appalling cause of the commotion. Pandelis, the technician from DEH, the power company, had fallen from a great height while pollarding a tree near the academic high school in Chorio and was dead. An amiable man known to everyone as he was the ultimate multi-tasker, receipting electricity bills first thing in the morning before heading out on the daily maintenance round in his bright orange Landrover with his colleague, Costas. Even foreign property owners know him as he was the one who, at the end of the bureaucratic paper trail, donned his crampons, walked up the pole and connected the electricity to your rebuilt and now Archaeologia approved ruin... In a small community such as this one where everyone is related by blood or marriage, it has been a sombre week and there can be few families untouched by the latest series of deaths. Our thoughts are with all of them.

Meanwhile life on the island has to continue, no matter what is happening in the personal lives of the inhabitants, as the tourist season has started and our new visitors have to be greeted with bright smiles and a warm welcome.

Here's a picture of the mule train taking a five minute break in Chorio to nibble the daisies, just to prove that it is still spring out there.




Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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Almonds pinging on the roof

After a couple of days of mild weather we woke to almonds pinging on the roof and wind creaking through the trees. The view from my window is of a dark grey sky over a light grey sea, punctuated only by rows of white crests marching steadily into the harbour. White froth marks the rocks off Nimos and fringes the shoreline. A low is passing over the area and rain is forecast for much of Greece for today and tomorrow. It should clear in the course of tomorrow and Sunday with strong winds expected on Monday.

The vegetation is starting to die back in places and the earth in exposed areas is cracking. Unless we have late penetrating rains the wild flowers will be gone in a few weeks. Spring passes very quickly here and it is not uncommon to have heatwaves in the 30s in April, although it is just as normal for it to be wet and windy with sandstorms.

It has been a week for funerals, including that of Papa Gabrielle, the Abbott of Panormitis, who had a heart condition and was of a great age and, more bizarrely, that of an elderly fisherman who accidently blew himself up while fishing with dynamite on Wednesday evening.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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The peach trees are starting to flower

It is a calm grey drizzly day on Symi. The whole of Greece is currently experiencing rain and thunderstorms. There are strong winds in the Ionian but nothing stronger than 6-7 on the Beaufort scale is expected in the Aegean. The weather should start to clear and warm up from tomorrow afternoon with temperatures reaching 22 degrees in the south of the country.

It is that curious period in the ferry schedules where some the fleet is still out of commission and the rest is tied up with doing summer schedule stuff, so when the Dodecanese Pride broke down yesterday quite a few people were stranded as the Aegli doesn't start until next week, the Proteus was doing the Kos, Nissyros, Tilos, Rhodes run without stopping in Symi and the Symi is on its summer tourist schedule and was therefore only leaving Symi late in the afternoon. This is the sort of thing that adds an element of the unexpected to even the most banal activities such as paying the telephone bill, which can only be done in Rhodes at the moment as the OTE office on Symi is still closed...

Meanwhile, in the Pedi valley, the peach trees are starting to flower. It is rare to actually have much of a crop as the island is far too dry and few of us have the water to spare to keep them adequately irrigated, but the blossom is pretty while it lasts. (see picture)


The warmer weather following a mild winter has meant that the insect population has hardly missed a beat. The new season's crop of baby locusts is already munching its way through the wild hollyhocks and every time the wind blows aphids fall like rain from the almond trees. While it is nice to think that ladybirds will take care of the aphid problem, in 12 years on Symi I don't think I have seen a dozen ladybirds.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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