Poppies and Peas

Symi is shining in the spring sun. Blue skies, calm seas and busy people cleaning, scrubbing, painting and varnishing. The fishing boats in the harbour are relaying their moorings to make space for visiting yachts and ferries. The road gang is hard at work, widening and grading the road to Nimborio. The whitewashing of the Kali Strata steps is nearly done. With all this activity down in the harbour the bakeries sold out of cheese and spinach pies much earlier than usual today. The gyros bars are switching to their Big Week menus of seafood and taramasalata. Big Week, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the week running up to Easter, when even those who don’t normally observe the Lenten fast often cut out meat and anything containing blood. The butchers in the harbour and Chorio have signs up advising Symiots to place their orders NOW for Easter lambs, kids and other Easter specialities.

Houses are being aired and every Symi balcony boasts its fair share of rugs, carpets, quilts and blankets. A well known harbour hound actually took his first paddle of the year this morning but most of the island’s human inhabitants are leaving swimming until the sea has warmed up a bit more. After months of abnormally high tides and flooded shoreline we now have the opposite and visiting Pedi yesterday some of the boats were actually aground. A high pressure system over the Eastern Mediterranean combined with the equinoctial spring low is responsible for this sudden drop in sea levels. The countryside is lush with spring flowers and the bees are having a wonderful time in the poppies that have opened in my pea fields.

Thursday 25 March is the Feast of the Annunciation and also the commemoration of the start of the Greek War of Independence. It is a public and religious holiday in Greece and even those who are striking may well put their placards down for the day and wave flags instead as parades take place in every town and village in Greece.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana