It’s Just Not Cricket, or Is It? - Guest Commentary

To those of us brought up in a certain tradition, what is and what isn’t cricket is a personal judgment made on grounds as much to do with morals as to the technicalities of the rules of the game. What certainly wasn’t cricket was the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. This tragic and depressing event had an interesting effect on Symi’s young Pakistani and Afghan workers. Shocked as they were by the news they were not going to miss their weekend’s cricket, even if they had to play it themselves rather than watch it on TV. Did they have any equipment? No. Could they make do? Certainly. An old roof truss was cut down to make the bat, stumps (including bails) were sawn up out of scaffolding planks and a tennis ball wrapped in insulation tape completed the kit. No slap of willow on leather here. But it was a proper game, even though 5 a side cricket is a bit of a novelty. It certainly wasn’t a rounders bash about. The non-batting batsman had to use a stump to mark his position at the crease as there was only one bat. The flight of the ball tended to be a bit erratic as the tape peeled off, but several enthusiastic sixes were hit. There are certain advantages to a tennis ball!

Was it cricket? In my view it certainly was – in the best sense of the expression. This is an effort well worth supporting. These young men find themselves on this island, struggling to make money to send home to their families as a result of economic and political circumstances far beyond their control. They have made considerable personal sacrifice to get here and for them it is certainly no bed of roses. Surely they deserve some fun out of life on a Sunday afternoon? Is there anyone in the UK or elsewhere coming out to Symi who could be persuaded to bring out an old cricket bat or a couple of balls? They would be much appreciated. This match was not a one off, a second (7 a side!) was played yesterday. If anyone should be moved to put anything in the post, please send it care of Nicholas Shum, P O Box 5, Symi 85600, Dodecanese, Greece.

Nicholas Shum

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A Short-Lived Affair

The clocks have changed and suddenly we have gone from hot water bottles and evenings huddled round the fire indoors to long summer evenings round the BBQ in the garden with no stops in between. Spring in Symi is a very short-lived affair so it is just as well we get a second spring in October when the rainy season starts.

The ferry companies, however, seem to be happily oblivious to the fact that the tourist season is supposed to start this week and the schedules are worse than ever at the moment. There are no boats from Rhodes to Symi on Thursday or Saturday and the only boat on Sunday is at 08.30 a.m, so early it condemns Sunday arrivals to stay on Rhodes until Monday evening. Not very good for anyone who has planned a week’s holiday on Symi, or for homeowners coming out to check that everything is in order with their houses after the winter’s storms. Considering that the town council owns shares in ANES, as do many of the Symiots themselves, and this island depends so heavily on tourism and foreign property owners for its economic survival, perhaps it is time the town hall woke up and did something about this, particularly as it happens every year. In the present economic climate it is foolhardy indeed to take the gamble that business lost in April will be regained further down the line.

Ferry frustrations aside, everyone is enjoying the milder weather and winter woollies are being discarded with enthusiasm. The warm weather is set to continue for the rest of the week, although mud showers from Africa are a possibility later in the week. Day time highs will be around 20 degrees centigrade if not higher, dropping to around 15 degrees centigrade at night.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Seen Recently on the Pedi Road

I don't usually go in much for animal pictures on this diary but this mother and child twosome were particularly appealing in the spring sunshine - and totally impervious to the roar of the power station over the road.  Similar scenes are evident on verges and patches of wasteland all round Symi at the moment as nanny goats and their kids and ewes with their lambs tuck in to lush spring flowers.

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Our End of the Mediterranean

The weather continues stormy and unsettled in our end of the Mediterranean with lots of spring thundershowers and squally downpours alternating with bright sunshine and exceptionally good visibility. Temperatures are slightly lower than is normal for this time of the year as most of the rain has been coming from the north instead of the usual southerly dust storms and mud rain off Africa.   Fortunately the weather was fine for the blessing of the Olive Tree in Chorio on Saturday.  You will find photographs of this on symi-photos.com.

The men from DEH, the Public Power Corporation, are still busy on Symi, installing poles, pylons and transformers. There was a 12 hour powercut on Symi on Sunday and even the mobile phone net work was off the air for much of that time. If the webcam and our emails are a bit haphazard it means that once again we are without electricity.

Something that visitors to Greece often don’t realize is that the best fishing is in the cooler months. This fine example of a yellow-finned tuna (palamida) was plucked from Symi harbour on Friday afternoon by Fotini, the daughter of Dimitri, the original ‘Mr Tasty’. From the water to the grill at Mr Tasty’s taverna is a matter of mere metres – you can’t really get fish fresher than that!

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Symi's Sports Stadium

While work on the marina in Pedi may have ground to a halt, Symi's new undercover sports stadium in Chorio is rapidly taking shape. As its design incorporates elements of the neo-classical architecture for which Symi is famous its completed appearance should harmonise pleasantly with the houses that surround it.

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A Winning Formula

A slow-moving storm system is heading our way and even BBC World News remembered to mention Greece in the European weather forecast this morning with gleeful tales of snow, rain and strong winds for Italy, Greece and the Balkans, while Iberia basks in equinoctial sunshine. Fortunately there are few visitors around on Symi at the moment to worry about missed flights and ferry disruptions but those accommodation owners who were hoping to start on the spring painting this weekend will have to wait a few more days. At the moment it is deceptively clear and bright out with temperatures around 10 degrees centigrade – considerably colder than it was for much of January this year!

Weather aside, there is a lot happening on the calendar in the next few days. The Olive Tree café opens in Chorio tomorrow morning. Regular visitors may recall a small bar, the Mikro Café, in the lane opposite the Hotel Fiona http://www.symivisitor.com/Fiona.htm. Well, this has now been transformed in the capable hands of Jenine Spalding (whom many of you may remember from the singles charter boat ‘Mikos Kosmos’, the Sunflower café and more recently Laskarina Holidays and Kalodoukas). It may be a difficult year to start a new business in most places in the present economic climate, but I had a quick look at the menu yesterday morning and it looks like a winning formula. Specialising in light meals and snacks with a bias towards healthy eating, there will also be some seriously yummy homemade cakes. We wish her every success in this venture.

The other red letter day on the calendar is, of course, the Independence Day Holiday on Wednesday 25 March. This is a big bank holiday in Greece as well as a religious holiday, celebrated with parades throughout the country. The children of Symi are practicing their marching and we are all hoping that the rain holds off.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Sunny Spells

It is that time of the year in Greece when it is warmer outside than in, during the day at any rate. It always takes a while for the spring thaw to penetrate the thick stone walls of Symi’s old neo-classical houses. The island is gently steaming in the sun as Symi slowly dries out. More showery weather is forecast for the rest of the week but the sunny spells outweigh the wet ones and everyone is hard at work, preparing for Easter and the forthcoming season.

Here is a view of Chorio from the bus stop at the windmills. It is interesting to see how the ruins are being rebuilt and restored and red roofs are creeping across areas that were only recently quite derelict. The part of Chorio in the centre of the picture is one of the oldest areas of habitation on the island and many of the houses have medieval or even older foundations. New visitors to Symi are often astonished by the number of churches and even in this photograph it is possible to see at least three.

Have a good week. I am off to play in my garden!
Regards,

Adriana

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Humming in the Broad Beans

The Merchant Houses of the Kali Strata as seen from Mavrovouni, the hill on the north side of the harbour.

The days are growing longer and the island is lush with daisies and rain-spattered poppies. Symi is looking forward to sunny weather next week as the rainy spells diminish in frequency and duration. Buds are swelling on the roses and the oak trees have been transformed from bald to bright green in a matter of days. The Easter lambs are munching plumply through the fields of Pedi and new chicks are hatching in the hen houses of Symi. The rising temperatures are also bringing the island’s insect life out of winter hibernation. Bees are humming in the broad beans and the eager twittering of wild birds fills the days with sound, even down here in the harbour.

Down in Yialos the paving work along the shop fronts on the north side of the harbour is progressing and some shopkeepers have started to reassemble the fittings that they had to remove to allow the paving work to proceed. The new Taxas supermarket restoration project in the lane next to the Symi Visitor Accommodation office is also taking shape and they have started to paint the exterior.

The ferry situation at the moment is quite dire as the Aegli hydrofoil www.anes.gr is still out of commission. Costas Sikalos at Symi Tours www.symitours.com says that there are no big boats running to Symi in March and Dodecanese Seaways www.12ne.gr is only running the Dodecanese Express which currently passes through Symi just three days a week. At the moment the only days where it is possible to do a trip from Symi to Rhodes and back without staying over night are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. As March is a month when business owners are running around sorting out paperwork for the forthcoming season and property owners are trying to get renovation work finished before the first holidaymakers arrive, this severely reduced schedule is causing a lot of headaches. We hope that the shipping companies come up with some solutions soon as in principal the tourist season starts in less than a month.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Blue and White

The sandstorm started to lift late on Saturday afternoon and Sunday’s thunder showers have cleared the air. Visibility has improved spectacularly and Symi is once again gleaming in bright Hellenic blue and white. Random gulls swoop over a postcard sea and small white clouds hover on the horizon. From the top of Chorio the wind farm behind Datca in Turkey is clearly visible, crisp white blades turning slowly in the breeze. The boatyard over at Harani is packed with excursion boats and water taxis, all lined up on the shore for a fresh coat of paint and their annual inspections.

Down in Pedi the Great Marina Saga continues – during the lull in operations due to the cash flow crisis someone noticed that the original plan was drawn up before the quayside was widened. If construction resumes along the current plan, there will be no room for boats inside the new mole unless a 4 metre wide strip of the quayside is demolished. The other problem is that those blocks that were put into the sea as intended promptly slid down the sandy bottom into deeper water and vanished. It seems that there was a small problem with the depth soundings too. Back to the drawing board… What was that old joke about a giraffe being a cow designed by bureaucrats?

Despite the dodgy weather Ian Haycox’s Three One-Night Stands proved popular and all three events were well attended.  Some photographs will be going up on the Out and About page on www.symi-photos.com shortly. 

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

Ian Haycox shows his work in the vaults of the Old Market on the Kali Strata.

The tunnel under Villa Irene in Chorio provided another interesting venue.

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Search this blog

I've added a search facility to Adriana's blog today; it's on the right-hand side under the 'Archives' box. You can search for any word or phrase and it will return results from this blog back to January 2005. In fact you can search Adriana's diary pages before they became a blog back in the year 2000. As it also indexes the entire Symi Visitor website back to 1999, there's a lot of information available!

Just a reminder to new visitors as well: you can click on any of the photos on this blog to see a larger version, particularly useful for viewing Adriana's weather stats.

Mike

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Much Pleasure

Symi has been buffeted by a Force 9 South-easterly gale since yesterday and conditions have only now improved sufficiently for the Proteus to pull out for Rhodes, a day later than scheduled. The island’s telephone lines have also been out of order, causing a breakdown in the internet connections and much furious muttering at the banks. These two events would suggest that we have a way to go before winter is officially over.

The wind has brought with it a fair amount of fine dust from the Sahara and when the rain comes that is forecast to reach us tonight it is likely to be of the red variety. It is very hazy out at the moment and Turkey has vanished. This is the first big sand storm of the season and typical of the weather in this part of the Mediterranean around the spring equinox. Temperatures in most of Greece are still hovering between 15 and 20 degrees centigrade and with the longer days and mild conditions the wild flowers are erupting in every corner. In the light of this the Symi municipality has now decided to grout between the stones on the new pavement along the motor road out of the town. The ribbon of flowers that gave so much pleasure last spring is fast disappearing as a solitary town hall employee works his way down from the windmills, digging out daisies and replacing them with cement. Sad but, no doubt, practical.

The cyclamens are still with us, sustained by all the rain we have had in recent weeks. More rain is expected over the next few days so they should continue to flower for some time yet.

It is going to be a busy weekend socially on Symi with the first of Ian Haycox’s One Night Stands www.haycoxart.com/ taking place at the Old Market at the bottom of the Kali Strata tonight. The second exhibition will be at Symi Dream www.symidream.com/ tomorrow night and the third will be at the artist’s home, Villa Irene www.symivisitor.com/irene.htm on Sunday night. All events start at 8 p.m.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Delightful Though Short-Lived

The Carnival weekend is over and Lent has begun, as has the new month. With the 2009 tourist season now only a month away Symi is suddenly galvanized into action and there are more Symiots in the hardware stores than in the cafeneions. Plans are being drawn up and materials ordered. Whether one orders direct from suppliers elsewhere in Greece or through the local businesses on Symi, everything hangs on the ferry schedule and at the moment that is seriously limited, not just because there are fewer boats in the winter anyway but also because windy conditions can disrupt the schedule still further and there is another strong blow forecast for the whole of Greece later this week.

Symi is still far too wet for any serious painting and decorating to take place, but the temperatures have crept up to more tolerable levels, around 20 degrees centigrade at midday, and people are venturing forth without quite so many layers of clothing. It is only those who travel on motorbikes who are still swaddled like the Michelin Man, hats and hoods pulled firmly down around ears and woolly gloves clamped to the handlebars. The rest of us are reviewing those items in our wardrobes that belong to that fleeting phenomenon, the Symiot spring – that brief interval between deepest winter and the first heatwave of summer. Symi has spring twice each year, at the end and the beginning of the rainy season, and it is a delightful though short-lived period where warmth and water combine to provide abundant greenery and the murmured observation, ‘If only it was like this all year round’ can be heard on the streets and in the cafeneions, in the shops and on the bus.

Meanwhile in the Pedi valley the Easter lambs are spending Lent dining on the finest daisies and freshly sprouting herb bushes, in happy ignorance of their destiny. The almond trees have shed their blossom in favour of bright green leaves and small furry nuts. The citrus trees are laden with fat lemons and oranges and the delicate scent of cyclamens perfumes the shady places.

Have a good week.

Regards

Adriana

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