Dew in the Sun
It is another still bright day on Symi. The sea is a shimmering sheet of pastel reflections, fractured by the wakes of puttering fishing boats. The Turkish coast has vanished in the mist and the rocks on the upper slopes of the Vigla gleam with dew in the sun. Municipal workers are making steady progress with Symi’s Christmas decorations and every night brings more lights. Householders are lagging behind a bit but then Greek Christmas is not the orgy of conspicuous consumption that it is in the West and I noticed in Rhodes on Wednesday that very few shops have received their Christmas stock yet. Even German discount chain, Lidl, was only just packing out the first baubles and tinsel amongst the baskets of cheap thermal underwear and back-to-school stationery offers. On a related retail note, regular British visitors who have occasionally been prevailed upon to bring various root vegetables to Symi in their luggage may be relieved to hear that Sotiris’ supermarket in Chorio now stocks parsnips on a regular basis.
The long spell of fine weather is expected to break this weekend with the possibility of thunder showers throughout Greece, starting from Saturday evening. Unsettled weather is forecast for most of next week and Greek winter in various forms may well be resuming from where it left off in mid November.
Walking down the Kali Strata this morning, I noticed that the ruined mansion house just next door to the old Glafkos Hotel has been tidied up. For many years it was an eye-catcher for photographers as a whole wall had blown over in a gale with the stones all still firmly attached to each other, resting gently in a shady garden of conifers and citrus. This surreal sheet of stone wall has now been dismantled and the stones neatly stacked, presumably for use when the house is rebuilt. A pallet of cement has arrived and is bundled under plastic sheeting against dew which would suggest that restoration will be commencing sooner rather than later.
In this winter sunshine picture you can see The Gate House (the white house at the top of the houses on the cliff, next to the ochre one). The roof tops of Iapetos Village Hotel and the tall conifers in the grounds of St John's church are in the foreground.
Regards,
Adriana
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Relieved to hear about the parsnips. That should help my baggage allowance a bit. How about the cricket equipment? You haven't mentioned that for a while.