It is going to be a long summer

A languid breeze wallows across the gelatinous sea and the air lies hot and heavy across the harbour. Apart from a small huddle of ice cream eaters under the umbrella by the kiosk there is very little human activity to be seen. The Symi is docked outside our office and a crewmember, shirtless and in sandals, is slopping some varnish on the afterdeck railing, humming happily in the knowledge that it will be completely dry by the time the boat leaves again at 16.15.

The heat came early this year. The rocks are hot to the touch and the leaves have started to fall from the trees. It is going to be a long summer.

The gulets are starting to come in, motoring as there is no wind of any use to sailors. The water boat, low in the water, has slipped alongside the clock tower, laden with the promise of cold showers.

As British actors, Caroline Carver and Kenny Doughty are getting married this afternoon and the Symi Visitor is organising their wedding the office is busier than usual. There are buckets of flowers outside the door, in the kitchen, in the back office - in fact there seem to be flowers everywhere I look. Various glamorous and vaguely familiar looking people have been bustling in and out for several days now and the phones have not stopped ringing. The last guests arrived this morning, many of them visiting Symi for the first time and, judging by the awed comments, probably not the last.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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38 degrees

Symi is still roasting under an early heatwave. The highest temperature recorded on Symi this week was 38 degrees. It is going to cool slightly for the weekend, with temperatures rising again from Monday. It is going to be a long hot summer. It is not only the thermometer that is rising on Symi. The hit counter on the home page has passed 1 000 000 hits; it is standing at 1 000 235 as I write this, so there are a lot of people out there thinking of small islands basking in the sun.

The tragic plane crash over Karpathos is still dominating the local news. It has, however, been determined from video footage of the incident examined by the Greek Ministry of Defence that the crash was an accident and that the Turkish pilot was not in any way to blame for the death of his Greek counterpart. Poor consolation to his widow and two young children. These 'dog fights' are a regular occurence and here on Symi, surrounded as we are by Turkey, we have long been accustomed to having war planes screaming overhead. Perhaps now that this particular tail tweaking exercise has ended in tragedy those responsible will recognise the danger of this game and sort out their differences around the table rather than in the skies above us.


This is one of my favourite views from the office windows
- very soothing on the eyes!

Have a peaceful weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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The temperature is starting to rise.

It will probably be a while before the Greeks recover from the shock of Eurovision but at least here on Symi everyone has the distraction of the season to take their minds off the fact that the Vikings stormed out of the frozen north and swept the boards. Bring back Sibelius. Actually, when Lordi was interviewed on Greek television they seemed as stunned as everyone else!

The temperature is starting to rise and the nights are becoming warmer. Not that long ago I was cooking the evening meal on the cast iron wood stove in the kitchen. Now I am still cooking on wood, but it is in the old fire-pit outside, in the shelter of the rosemary bushes. It is an aromatic outdoor kitchen with not just rosemary but also oregano, thyme and lemons within easy reach. What more does one need?

Most of us have packed away our duvets and blankets, mothballed until November, and are shaking out the mosquito nets. Our office is still pleasantly cool with the breeze coming off the water but out in the sun the temperature is around 30 degrees centigrade at midday and everyone who has been in to see us this morning has been dressed in shorts, sarongs and the like. By the way, speaking of visitors, for those who know her from the chat page, Mille and family arrived safely on this morning's Aegli and are settling in up in Chorio.



It is time for another view of the Pedi valley, this time taken from above the old football pitch, soon to be the site of the new sports centre for the island's youngsters. In the distance, if you look carefully, you will be able to see the sails of a large yacht creaming past the entrance to Pedi bay. Here in the harbour the gulets are just starting to come in for the day and a big three masted Turkish schooner has tied up outside the sponge shop. As the price of fuel continues to rise more and more of the gulets and caiques are improving their sailing rigs and using their booms for something other than holding up the sunshade. It used to be quite rare to see any of these vessels properly rigged but now this is the norm. It will be interesting to see if it affects the number of megayachts that pass through Symi this summer - will the rich and famous switch to eco-friendly sail power, or will they continue to convert fuel into noise by the barrelful?

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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Rosy spires of drowsy bees

The spring sunshine is sparkling on the water and the muted ochres, yellows and creams of the houses gleam like old gold. Birds are twittering on the electricity cable that swoops across the view from our office window and small bright fishing boats putter across the strait between Harani and Nimos. White sunshades shield dozing bodies as the siesta takes its toll. No matter how hectic it is in the office, the view from the window never fails to delight the eye.

Symi is drifting gently from winter's green to the burnished hues of summer. As the fields and terraces turn to gold a whole new source of colour arrives in the form of vigorous vines and effusions of oleanders. The geraniums are exceptionally bright this year and their mauves, pinks and scarlets are postcard perfect. Wild hollyhocks lurch in surprising corners, rosy spires of drowsy bees.



The gypsy hawkers who earn their living by travelling the rural areas of Greece, bringing to islanders and mountain folk the kinds of things they cannot easily buy locally, have switched from the gum boots and tracksuits of December and the plastic tablecloths and housewares of the Lenten spring clean to Cretan pots of various sizes, garden furniture and nursery plants. Three such trucks arrived in convoy this week, bearing everything from wooden restaurant chairs to ropes of garlic in addition to cast iron Chinese benches and a veritable forest of bay and lemon trees. The Roma population of Greece does not have an easy time of it and, for many, home, when it is not the cab of a pickup truck while travelling the island circuit, is in one of the appalling shanty settlements on the fringes of the large towns of Crete and the mainland. As communities like Symi become more affluent the locals have more money to spend on the things these people bring, but they also have better access to what is available in the larger centres such as Rhodes, so in many ways the market for the Roma hawkers is diminishing. It would be a pity to see this cavalcade fade away, not just because unless the Roma adapt to an alternative way of life they will suffer even greater hardship, but also because they form a last link with the splendours of the caravanserais that used to criss-cross the Mediterranean and the Middle and Far East all the way to China.



Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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White sails gliding past on an indigo sea

It is a beautiful clear day on Symi. A fresh northerly breeze has blown the haze away and visibility is superb. White sails gliding past on an indigo sea, embraced by the distant lavender hills and far purple mountains of Asia Minor... There are times when life here really does look like the glossy brochures and postcards. There is a lot of yachting activity at the moment as Symi is a popular port of entry for yachts that have over wintered in Turkey and many pass through here to complete immigration and collect their Greek sailing documents.

The Symi car ferry has just docked. At this time of the year the day trippers are often elderly people and the stair lift on the ferry sees quite a lot of use. Symi might be full of steep steps but enough of the harbour area is accessible for people with mobility problems to still derive a great deal of pleasure from visiting the island. One does not need to be able to climb the Kali Strata to be able to enjoy looking at the Neo-classical houses lining the amphitheatre harbour and, controversial though the number of cars on the island may be, one cannot deny that being able to hire a car to explore the interior and see the amazing views from the top has opened up the island to a vast number of people who previously would have been excluded. The enjoyment of a beautiful environment should not be restricted to those who are young and nimble.

Symi's hospitality is open to all. One of the things that first attracted me to the island, aside from the obvious stuff like the scenery and the architecture, was the fact that the island has quite a large permanent population, unlike many other islands. There is a good balance between young and old and the island has a life of its own all year round, not just in the tourist season. There may be a certain amount of 'sales patter' trotted out for foreign visitors on the quayside (which is not really surprising as it is important for shopkeepers to equip their sales staff with the vocabulary necessary to sell their wares, and this can come out parrot fashion) but it doesn't take long for a new comer with an open mind to feel at home in the community. The fact that most holiday accommodation is also within the community rather than stuck in artificially created tourist ghettos also helps to explain why so many visitors come back year after year.

It is serious spider season now and there are some wonderful specimens around. My camera isn't good enough to pick up the one I saw this morning which had crafted its web between two electricity poles in Chorio, high up in the air to catch the insects attracted to the street lights at night.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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The oregano is in now full bloom

We awoke to the patter of rain on the tin roof and it rained steadily all morning. Unusually for this time of year it was clean rain and the island looks and smells wonderfully fresh. It is still overcast now but the reviving effects of the showers on the vegetation are already noticeable. It has been fairly warm during the day this week but the evenings are still cool and today I doubt if it will get as high as 20 after the rain.

As you've had a lot of words from me lately, here are some Symi snapshots taken over the last few days I'd like to share with you. In the Pedi valley the farmers are busy cutting and baling hay for their animals. If it is left too long, in the dry summer it literally turns to dust. I took this picture while walking to work one morning this week. Hard to believe that not so long ago it was a mass of yellow daisies!



The oregano is in now full bloom in most areas. As usual it is full of small copper coloured beetles. And yes, that is a very enthusiastic geranium in the background.



If you contrast this picture of the Pedi valley and Pedi Bay which I posted on 1 May you will see quite a few changes, not least the number of yachts in the bay.



And finally, as no Symi scrapbook is complete without the obligatory cute animal shot, my neighbour's slightly pregnant donkey enjoying the afternoon sun.



Have a good weekend!

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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It is a breezy day with plenty of sunshine

Sorry Monday's report was a bit short. The local telephone company, the OTE, has been working on the phone lines on the island this week, as anyone who has been trying to get through may have found out. As we are all on dial-up connections here, and slow ones at the best of times, it is very frustrating to try to get onto the internet and stay on it long enough to actually get an email either in or out before the link is lost yet again. This is why the webcam images are often only partial ones - the link is dropped before the download is complete. Fortunately they seem to have turned their attentions to another part of the island's system today and I actually managed to stay on line for a whole 10 minutes this morning. Does this adequately explain why we don't provide continuous live webcam coverage of Symi harbour?!

It is a breezy day with plenty of sunshine out of the wind. The feathery sky suggests that it is probably blowing hard somewhere else and the flags left over from Monday's parade are still fluttering on the bridge.

The municipality is busy with its traffic control preparations for the season. A row of bright orange beacons lines the seaward verge opposite Pachos. This means that everyone now parks on the pavement on the other side of the road while drinking coffee at Pachos in the morning but it looks quite tidy and at least it means that only one side of the road is now parked up instead of two! Themistocles was out with a big pot of yellow road marking paint this morning, carefully ruling 'no parking' lines across the bus stop and other 'no parking' zones have been designated around the town. Enforcing them will be the challenge and visitors can do their own bit by following the rules to the letter when they hire bikes and cars, rather than just 'doing as the locals do' and blithely ignoring them.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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It's VE Day today and the island has been abuzz since early this morning. Many of the dignitaries have been on the island all weekend so the celebrations have been more extensive than usual. The parade has just finished and we can hear the sound of music as there is now dancing in the square. We'll be putting up some out and about pictures later on today, when our photographer returns from her mission! There are also some photos of Koukoumas, an ancient traditional dance which takes place in Chorio every year. The Symi Women's Association does a great job of encouraging the island's young people to learn and respect their heritage and traditions. While in other parts of Greece the traditional dances are the preserve of the old, here they are very much supported by the local children and teenagers.

More tomorrow!

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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Stalls newly painted and staff spruce and eager

There's a fat white power yacht gleaming in the sunshine off Harani and a Beneteau is stooging about the harbour, looking for a place to moor. A light breeze is riffling across the water, sending the gulls drifting out to sea in pursuit of bits of bread tossed from taverna tables. The island is slowly turning from green to brown and the daisies have gone from the Kali Strata, grubbed out by the street sweepers, and the steps have been whitewashed. Tall thunder clouds are sliding past behind Nimos, following the Turkish coast and the weather forecast predicts rain that just misses us.

Most of the tourist shops have opened up now, stalls newly painted and staff spruce and eager. The Ilion is doing tourist runs in addition to the Symi and two hydrofoils came over from Kos this morning so there are quite a few tourists about. Some of the excursion boats have started but the water taxis and beach tavernas aren't open yet and many of the fishing boats are still on the beach at Tolis.

Monday is a bank holiday on Symi as it is VE Day. People who are unfamiliar with the island may be puzzled by this but it is actually quite an important day in the island's history as the Peace Treaty was signed here on Symi. There will be a parade along the front by the war memorial.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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The oregano is starting to bloom

It is a hazy spring day with clouds gathering behind Nimos. It is raining in Athens and we can expect a shower or two here in the course of the next few days as the weather is going to remain unsettled for a while yet. It is only about 18 degrees today. Many businesses are shut for the May Day bank holiday and the schools only go back tomorrow from the Easter holidays so there is a festive air among the locals. As it is traditional to pick a posy to decorate ones front door on 1 May many people are taking the opportunity to go out into the countryside. The Pedi Valley is a good source of wild flowers at the moment and in the gardens the roses are doing well this year. The oregano is starting to bloom, much to the enjoyment of those lambs which escaped the Pascal massacre. The barley fields are turning from green to gold and the bees have rolled the petals off most of the poppies in their enthusiasm.


The Pedi Valley

The hawkers are doing the rounds with trucks full of plastic garden furniture and parasols. They must be doing well judging by the number of 3-legged plastic chairs stacked next to the skips in Chorio. Still on the subject of shopping, one of the supermarkets in Chorio seems to be expecting a serious Anglo-Saxon invasion - Tetley's teabags, P G Tips and, of all things, little brown plastic tubs of Marmite in red string bags, like the individual servings of evaporated milk for coffee. No need to bring it with you, chaps! That luggage space can now be given over to other things. Instead, packets of English teabags with Greek writing on them can be bought as souvenirs to take home...! (Well, I used to buy bags of South African liquorice allsorts labelled in Hebrew in Tel Aviv to take back on home visits...)

For the next few months I shall be posting my report on Mondays and Fridays as I am now at the Symi Visitor every day. When it actually appears on the website, however, is up to Mike's good offices. Thanks Mike!

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana
www.symivisitor.com

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