Chocolate-coated Halva

It is the season for mud rain and murky skies and today is no exception. Symi has been blanketed by low cloud for much of the week and last night sporadic light rain began just before midnight. It has been raining steadily since the early hours of this morning. The high dust content in the air, product of sandstorms in North Africa, gives the light a strange orange glow and where the water pools the reddish particles settle out. The long range forecast is for more of the same for about a week, punctuated by gale force winds.

Meanwhile, the Greek government sat until late last night and finally passed the pension reform bill. It was quite interesting watching the debate on Vouli, the parliamentary channel, on television last night. What they didn't show was the demonstrators outside parliament and their clashes with the riot police - for that we had to watch the BBC this morning where Greece's social security woes knocked the Tibetan lock-down and the health of the US dollar out of the top slot on the 7 a.m broadcast. The unions have said that they won't accept the reforms so we can expect more industrial action in the weeks to come. As this may affect people's travel plans we will try to give advance notice of airport strikes whenever we can. As it is, some visitors to Symi have already been affected by this week's airport strikes and have had to cancel their Easter breaks or try to get onto later flights. Fortunately Symi, unlike Athens, has not been affected by either dustbinmen's strikes or power cuts, so as long as you remember to bring your plastic for the hole in the wall (which usually works, even if the bank workers are on strike) there is nothing to stop you enjoying Symi once you actually get here, strikes or no strikes!

On that cheerful note I wish you all a happy Easter – we have another month to go yet before Greece and the other Orthodox countries celebrate theirs and the shops are still largely devoid of chocolate rabbits and gift wrapped eggs. Instead we are fasting on mussels, prawns and chocolate-coated halva.

Regards,
Adriana