The Last Red Poppies

The spring flowers are dwindling as the weather turns warmer and drier. The daisies are turning from yellow to gold and the last red poppies are nodding among the stones. With the rising temperatures the insect life is hatching, bringing with it increased bird and lizard activity. The row of electricity poles from Pedi to the top of the Vigla is now gleaming with three strands of bright copper wire so that particular project is well under way, as is the undercover sports stadium in Chorio. Down in Pedi there is no movement on the marina project and yachts are swinging at anchor as they have always done. A vast armada of Russian yachts passed through last night, much to the surprise of the only taverna open down there which ran out of food.

The island is slowly becoming busier as gulets and small cruise ships call in at weekends and yachts stop off on their way from Turkey into the Aegean. May the first is a bank holiday in many European countries, including Greece, and many French and Italian holiday home owners have taken the opportunity to come across to Symi to enjoy their houses and prepare for their house parties in August. Although there is still the possibility of occasional showers, the weather is becoming more conducive to external painting and decorating. Many foreign property owners take delight in donning their oldest clothes and trying their hand at a little whitewashing or gardening as an escape from the gloom of the global economic crisis, bird flu, swine flu and whatever else the media would like us all to be worrying about.

Have a good week, and enjoy the spring sunshine wherever you can find it.

Regards,

Adriana

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Living on Symi

It is a clear spring day on Symi with a chilly north breeze riffling the water in the harbour. The gulls have been wheeling, squabbling over scraps of bread and fishermen’s cast offs, since early and the water boat is slowly rising on her marks over by the clock tower. Occasional low white clouds drift by, taking with them the last lingering hopes of any rain.

Yesterday I had cause to go to the dentist. An unremarkable event in any place but Symi. As is usual in Symi, I did not have an appointment and headed down to Yialos shortly after 9 when the surgery on the Kataraktis opens to find out when he could fit me in. The door was unlocked so I went in, calling greetings, and sat down. The sounds of wistful guitar music and low singing drifted down the stairs. A few minutes later the 9.30 appointment arrived, a visitor who had gone through the formalities, and the music stopped. The dentist came down, greeted me enthusiastically and told me that he could attend to my needs as soon as he had finished with the visitor. We both complimented him on his singing and playing and asked him if this was a new hobby. No, just something he was rediscovering from his student days. While the dentist was treating the visitor one of the fishermen popped in, hands laden with bags of fresh fish. Would the dentist be wanting anything today? No thanks came the reply. The visitor departed, saying that he was off to the ATM to draw some money to pay the dentist. No problem said the dentist, patting his guitar. My turn next and the necessary repairs were made. A quarter of an hour later I departed, the hesitant strains of 1970s Greek popular songs following me back down the lane.

It is incidents such as this that make living on Symi infinitely preferable to living elsewhere.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Lush and Green

Easter is over, the first cruise ship of the season, Salamis Glory, has been in and the excursion boats bring a regular throng of eager day trippers from all corners of the globe. The summer tourist season has started on Symi. Yesterday the thermometer reached a sizzling 28 degrees at midday and, although April showers are threatening, the days of the Symi layered look are numbered. The weather is expected to remain mild but unsettled for the next few days with the possibility of sand storms and mud rain as a slow moving low pressure system spirals its way languidly across from Italy, picking up sand from North Africa as it comes. It is certainly very hazy today and there has been a sprinkling of dirty rain up in Chorio. The Pedi Valley is still lush and green as the new shoots on the oak and tamarisk trees have unfurled into bright spring leaves. Heavy old-fashioned damask roses are flowering in some of the gardens and the bougainvilleas are finally recovering their leaves after the baldness of a wet winter.

Down in Yialos the waterfront tourist shops are opening up for business, racks of colourful sarongs and white kaftans fluttering in the breeze. There are not many visitors staying on Symi at the moment but there are plenty of day trippers coming over from Rhodes to justify opening in the day time.

It will be some weeks yet before the water taxis and beach tavernas start to trade. The shore in Pedi is still lined with hauled out fishing boats and the debris of winter storms and it will be a while before the rows of sunbeds and parasols are put out. April is a month for walkers and photographers rather than sun-worshippers and beach goers. Sea temperatures are still on the chilly side. With work schedules delayed by the constant wet weather every painter on the island is up a ladder, brush in hand, and the artisans and tradesmen of Symi are working round the clock to catch up with their deadlines for the season’s new visitors.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Good Friday 2009

Greek Easter without red rain is a rare Easter indeed. The weather has remained favourable and even the showers on Wednesday were unusually clean. Symi is bright with flowers and bustling with people as many Symiots working elsewhere have returned home for the holidays. Today is Good Friday and tonight there will be the traditional solemn candlelit processions of the funerary biers through all the parishes, accompanied by fire crackers to keep the devil at bay. Many Symiots are fasting today and as one woman said to us this morning, it really is difficult to bake all those trays of sugar cookies and cheese pies when you cannot sample them until Sunday. At midnight on Saturday night the Resurrection will be celebrated with great joy and a lot of noise. As Toby mentioned in his blog recently, Greek television even gives DIY demonstrations for making your own rockets…

There is a taboo on manual work such as carpentry and metal work over Easter as these trades are connected with the crucifixion so the workshops of Symi are closed until Tuesday next week when the holiday weekend is over. Instead Easter Sunday and Monday are spent roasting lamb and feasting in celebration of the Resurrection.

Kalo Pasca to all our Orthodox readers and a peaceful weekend to everyone else!

Regards,

Adriana

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Down Among the Daisies

Spring has painted Symi with a generous brush and there are lush flowers wherever one looks. Even the most scrubby bit of wasteland is waist high in daisies and the bees are delirious in the poppies. Last week’s rain has freshened the landscape and given the island a boost. The prodigious vegetation has brought with it many insects and that, of course, means that the bird life is also flourishing. The tortoises that live in the wilder parts of my garden have woken up and I spotted one shambling slowly through the vetch last week, a bit of grass hanging from his lips as he carved a trail through the tangled foliage. April really is a nature lover’s delight. While many parts of Greece are still experiencing quite stormy weather, most of this passes to the north of Symi and Rhodes at this time of the year. Showers are forecast but they seldom reach us. Temperatures remain in the twenties and it is mild enough to eat outside in the evenings.

Preparations continue for the tourist season and as the houses start to dry out the season for external painting has begun. Swollen wooden doors and shutters are slowly shrinking to their summer dimensions and the great pre-Easter whitewashing of steps, lanes and houses is well under way. The lanes are perfumed not just with the scent of orange blossom but also the whiff of Easter baking – vanilla, cinnamon, flower water and almonds.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Fruits and Flowers

Happy Easter to all of you who are celebrating this weekend! While Western Europe tucks into hot cross buns and chocolate rabbits, the Orthodox world has another week to go to the most important celebration on the Orthodox Church calendar. The preparations for Big Week are well under way and the housewives of Chorio are in a frenzy of cleaning and baking. This is the time of year when the grocers sell whole wheels of cheese for the making of pies and pre-dyed Easter eggs and hand drawn signs go up outside the butchers, telling people to place their orders now for Easter lamb and kid. The week before Greek Easter is a serious fasting week and tavernas and gyros bars generally don’t sell meat or anything that is not on the approved fasting menu. Fish, calamari, prawns and taramasalata are the order of the day.

The weather is warm and hazy with temperatures in the low twenties. There is the possibility of the odd dusty shower but by and large the weekend should be dry. The recent rains combined with mild temperatures have ensured a sumptuous display of spring flowers and the cyclamens are lingering on in the shade. The orange trees are particularly beautiful, laden with heavily scented waxy blossom. Citrus trees carry both fruits and flowers at the same time and can have both for much of the year but this is the peak flowering time for orange trees on Symi. Meanwhile the hawkers are busy selling crates of the last orange harvest from the backs of trucks in Chorio and Yialos.

Down in the harbour the plastic tents and awnings of winter are being packed away and chairs and tables are being arranged in their more open summer aspect, ready for the first visitors. Yachts are milling about, looking for berths – a mixture of Greek-flagged vessels visiting from Rhodes for the Easter holidays and sailing boats from more exotic ports of origin that have checked out of winter marinas in Turkey and are preparing to start on the summer’s cruise across the Mediterranean.

Have a peaceful weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Spring Green

A merry hoot has announced the arrival of the Symi II bearing the first group of day trippers – much to the bafflement of all concerned as this does not appear on the ferry schedule until 16 April. The Aegli hydrofoil is still out of commission although I saw her berthed in her usual slot in Mandraki when I was in Rhodes last week.

The sun is breaking through after yesterday’s deluge and the showery weather should clear from Tuesday afternoon. The whole of Greece has been experiencing thunderstorms and the view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office still shows some impressive thunderheads piling up over nearby Turkey. The Afghan cricket team was not deterred by the weather and as soon as there was a gap in the downpour late yesterday afternoon they were out on the football pitch, letting off steam.

Symi is blanketed in yellow daisies and the pollen count is high with all the oaks and olives in blossom too. The Pedi valley is a tapestry of different shades of spring green, dotted with fat and munching sheep. Down in Pedi Bay work has resumed on the marina – the building materials ship was rafted up to the crane yesterday afternoon, off-loading sand and other essentials in the pouring rain. We wait with interest to see if they will a) continue with the original plan even though the space inside will be too narrow to accommodate boats, b) demolish and rebuild the new jetty at a more practical distance from the shore or c) demolish the road along the quay to gain the necessary space that way. I suspect it will be option a) as the other two options would involve additional expense and more tenders. Watch this space.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Spring Deliveries

The men from DEH are still hard at work so the daily power cuts continue. At least today’s one was shorter than expected but given that so many people are rushing to meet lines to prepare their shops and businesses for the tourist season, the lack of electricity for 3-4 hours or longer on a frequent basis is a source of great frustration. There is a lot of muttering going on amongst the island’s carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, plasterers, shop fitters and so on.

Apart from the Public Power Corporation’s activities mentioned above, another power line is in the process of being raised, this time by the town hall, to connect the still-under-construction desalination plant on the Pedi road with the yet-to-be-built wind farm on the top of the Vigla. A row of poles is slowly being hoisted into position and follows an alarmingly perpendicular route straight up the north face of the mountain, past Profiti Ilias. My Symiot neighbour, Panormitis, who keeps several flocks of pigeons is very worried as the line will pass directly over his dovecotes and he is afraid that the birds will be affected. Stand by for impressive photos of the wind farm when it finally comes to pass.

The weather continues warm and sunny with a haze of Saharan dust in the air. So far we have had very little in the way of mud rain this year and the chat on the streets is that it is probably all being saved up for once the Easter whitewashing is finished… It is that time of the year when the young people of Greece commence their annual explorations of the more remote parts of the country of their birth and the harbour was full of teenagers this morning, delivered by the Dodecanese Pride for a day trip to Symi.

Speaking of spring deliveries, the arrival of the icon of St Savvas on Wednesday brought some unexpectedly joyful peals of bells to the island. As weddings and baptisms are not permitted during Lent such exuberant carillons are rare at this time of the year. You will see pictures of the arrival of the icon on Symi-Photos.com. The Proteus has just come in, bringing a happy crop of foreign home owners and Symi business owners as well as a massive earth-moving machine, evidently for either the desalination plant or the wind farm.

Have an enjoyable weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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