Flurries of Rain

It’s a damp day, a chequerboard of ponderous clouds and brilliant sunshine. The gaudy awnings of summer have been packed away and the houses around the harbour are tightly shuttered against whatever winter might bring. Cars are parked where sponge stalls and postcard racks stood only a week ago.

The island is very quiet at the moment. The children are all in school and there are few people around. The excavators are still busy in Chorio, preparing the site for the new sports’ centre behind the Taxiarchis Hotel. At the moment it looks like a huge open-cast mine. Apart from the clatter of their machinery and the lumbering lorries of rubble grinding slowly up the Panormitis road, there is very little ambient noise. At night we are surrounded by a cocoon of softly tinkling sheep bells punctuated by flurries of rain on the tin roof.

Many parts of Greece have had bitterly cold weather with heavy snowfalls on high ground, gale force winds in the Aegean and flooding in Crete. Symi, dozing quietly in protective embrace of Asia Minor, has had little more than showers and the next few days are expected to be cold and clear.

The winter ferry schedule is rather less settled than the weather and although the ANES website still shows the Aegli as running in conjunction with the Proteus, in effect it was actually the Symi which left Yialos at 8.30 this morning.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana