Head for the Hills.

View from the road above Lemonitissa Church

The old part of Chorio at the top of the Kataraktis

After a stormy week it is now one of those days where one wants to pack a picnic of tomatoes, feta cheese and retsina and head for the hills.  The hills are green, dotted with nodding poppies and pastel pink clover.  The goats are sunning themselves on the rocks above the Kataraktis and I ran into a strange trio of two sheep and a Rhode Island Red hen on my walk to work this morning.

A strange trio.

Shipping this week has been fairly chaotic as not only where there several changes to the schedule for the Panagia Skiadeni but the new captain for the Blue Star chickened out of attempting to dock in Symi on Wednesday morning, leaving a lot of people stranded.  Understandable, I suppose, bearing in mind that visibility was down to a few metres and there was a strong cross wind but we like to think that Greek sea captains are made of sterner stuff.  The weather deteriorated further in the course of the afternoon with the result that the same boat then spent several hours sailing up and down between Ialysos and Rhodes harbour, waiting for the storm to abate.  We had over 20 millimetres of heavy rain on Wednesday afternoon and sporadic showers for much of Thursday.  There is more stormy stuff working its way across the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Lebanon so we can expect to be pounded again, but at least the intervals between fronts are getting longer, punctuated by lovely days such as today.

We have just had an invasion of school children in the Symi Visitor Accommodation office, accompanied by their teacher. They are knocking on doors to collect money to pay for repainting their school.  This is not the normal way in which such things are done but needs must in times of austerity and the Greeks have never been ones to hang about, waiting for government hand outs.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

The road above the Kataraktis.  Do you see those rocks in the middle of the picture?

Well, they are occupied.

Wheat ripening in the Pedi Valley.