Greetings from Cape Town...

After several adventures I am now safely in Cape Town, visiting my family - who only have dial-up, hence the brevity of this posting!

Normal updates on the latest news from Symi will resume on my return from South Africa mid February.

:-)

Regards,
Adriana

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Planning for the Year Ahead

It is a calm cloudy day on Symi with a thin veil of mist masking the distant shores of Turkey and Asia Minor. The nights have been quite spectacular recently with the full moon rising over Pedi bay and the fishing boats have been going out in the evenings. Temperatures on Symi are still between 7 and 15 degrees centigrade but higher than that in sunny places out of the wind. At this time of the year it really makes a huge difference where your accommodation is located – a chill wind can be whistling round the windmills and the Kali Strata dripping with dew while Mavrovouni is bright in the sun and people on the south-facing side of Harani are sun-bathing on their balconies.

Symi is still very quiet as many businesses don’t reopen until April or May and with at least another month of wet and windy weather ahead of us there is little point in doing much outside preparation. January is usually the time for planning for the year ahead. This is the month when business owners decide how they are going to reinvent themselves for the forthcoming season, catalogues are perused and stock ordered.

The almond trees in the Pedi valley are slowly coming into flower – with the relatively mild winter we have had many did not even fully lose their leaves this year. The lemon and orange trees are heavy with ripening fruit. This year the Symi oranges are sweeter than usual thanks to the September rains. Some years they are so bitter they are even too harsh to make marmalade. Not that the Greeks make marmalade, of course. The usual use for bitter oranges here is to make so-called spoon sweets, sticky preserves of candied peel in syrup which are served by the spoonful (hence the name) with an accompanying glass of iced water either in the afternoon after the siesta or at the end of a meal. Spoon sweets are also made from immature almonds when the nutshells are still soft, tiny aubergines, rose petals – anything that can be candied in syrup.

Have a peaceful week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Well Served in Many Ways

It is a clear chilly day on Symi but that is only relative. Looking at the reports on the BBC World Service Symi is still one of the warmest places in Europe at the moment with midday temperatures touching 15 degrees centigrade, dropping to about 7 degrees centigrade at night. Another rainy front is moving into Greece from the west and the Hellenic Meteorological Service is forecasting a wet weekend for the whole of Greece with snow in the north and on high ground and rain everywhere else. It looks as though the so-called halcyon days may be running a bit late this year.

Here on Symi the winter holidays are officially over and the Christmas decorations are being packed away. This does not mean, however, that the Easter bunny is being dusted off – Carnival is the next major event on the Greek calendar and Clean Monday, the holiday that marks the end of Carnival and the beginning of Lent, falls on 2 March this year. Although fancy dress costumes haven’t hit the shops yet, Kostas Kontas’ stationery shop in Chorio has a wonderful collection of materials for making masks and costumes including all kinds of shiny stars, gaudy spangles, moulds for masks and brightly coloured sheets of felt – it is difficult to avoid getting side-tracked when shopping for more mundane items such as printer ink and envelopes. Over the years the range of specialist items available in the shops on Symi has steadily improved and, for a community of 3000 people, we are well served in many ways.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Weather Statistics for Symi, Dodecanese, for December 2008

With so many enquiries regarding the weather on Symi at different times of the year I have installed a weather station at my farm which is located at the top edge of the Pedi Valley, about half way up the Vigla. It is quite a sheltered location so the wind strength readings are fairly conservative. If you would like to receive these graphs in a higher resolution than shown or any other information on the subject, please email me. I will put up the figures each month for the month preceding and hopefully we will be able to come up with a more accurate picture than the one currently based on the airport at Rhodes.

Outdoor temperatures recorded at my farm in the Pedi valley, Symi for the period 1 December 2008 to 1 December 2009. The red line is the outdoor temperatures and the green shows the dew point.

Barometric Pressure for the same period recorded at my farm on Symi.

Rainfall for the period 1 December 2008 to 1 January 2009 as recorded at my farm in the Pedi Valley, Symi. The software only allows for a maximum of 100 mm rainfall per month. We actually received 118 mm of rain in December which is why it has gone off the top of the chart!

Wind speed at the same location.  Gusts are shown in green and wind strength in red.

N.B. Click on the individual images to see an enlarged version. This works for any photos on this blog.

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Threading Oranges

The promised rain has been dancing round Symi since Friday night but all we have had has been occasional light sprinklings and lots of sunny intervals. Other parts of Greece have had quite serious stormy weather and northern Greece is blanketed with snow. The weather forecast for Symi for the rest of the week remains unsettled with the possibility of rain, thunderstorms and strong winds.

The Christmas holidays aren’t officially over in Greece until the Epiphany celebrations on 6 January which is, of course, tomorrow. This is a big holiday in Greece and is particularly well supported in the islands where there is a strong maritime tradition. One of the traditional features of this celebration is the construction of booths in the harbours and ports of all the islands and the mainland. It is from these booths, decorated with cypress branches and garlands of oranges, that the presiding priest throws the Cross into the water, from which it is retrieved by one of a group of local young men. Whoever braves the cold to successfully retrieve the Cross can look forward to a blessed year. In the photograph you can see two Symiots busy threading oranges onto wire to decorate the booth on which they are sitting.

Another source of feverish activity on the quayside is the conversion of the ground floor of the old Panormitis building next door to what was Ali’s Turkish Carpet shop into the new premises for ANES, Symi’s local ferry company (www.symivisitor.com/greek-ferry.htm and www.anes.gr ). The office is now open for business although there are still painters and decorators at work.

Have a peaceful week.
Regards,
Adriana

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Extending the Hand of Friendship

New Year’s Day on Symi was clear and bright and the thermometer made it up to 12 degrees at midday, falling rapidly to a minimum of 4 degrees centigrade as soon as the sun set behind the Vigla. A new spell of rainy weather is already moving over Greece and is expected to reach Symi in the course of today. The weather is expected to remain unsettled and showery for the next few days, with occasional thunderstorms and downpours as well as some strong winds early next week. The whole of the Mediterranean basin is experiencing stormy conditions and low temperatures at the moment and the outlook for the Epiphany Day celebrations on 6 January is decidedly chilly for most parts of Greece, including Symi.

Greece has been in the international media a lot in recent weeks as the riots in Athens and elsewhere gave the press something new to talk about apart from financial scandals and the interminable ‘credit crunch’. In a recent report on the BBC’s website www.bbcworld.com entitled Riots Push Greece to the Edge, filed by Malcolm Brabant on 25 December 2008, I was interested to read his last paragraph:

“So how can Europeans stop Greece's social uprising escalating? Well, for a start, they could help by taking a holiday in Greece. Whatever the dire threats of the would-be revolutionaries, the riots are not going to reach the thousands of idyllic beaches and inspiring archaeological sites. But if you are coming to Athens in 2009, pack a gas mask with your bikini, just in case.”

Sound advice. I just wonder if the international media will be as eager to report the fact that Greece has just provided two transport planes full of humanitarian aid and medical supplies including blood sufficient for 70 transfusions to the people of Gaza. Hellenic Aid, part of the Foreign Ministry of Greece, in conjunction with the Greek Red Cross and the City of Athens has put together one of the first deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza, just as Greece was quick to send a hospital ship to tsunami-stricken India and Sri Lanka. On a smaller scale, the continued good relations between the people of Symi and Datca have their origins in a boatload of clothes and other supplies from the people of Symi to those affected by the Turkish earthquake in 1999. There is a lot more to Greece than the scenes of anarchy that make such sensationalist television footage, and extending the hand of friendship to those in need is very much part of the Greek psyche.

Happy New Year to you all.

Regards,

Adriana

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