Awash with Glorious Poppies

Friday's Dracunculus vulgaris in all its odiferous splendour.  

A donkey, head down among the daisies near the sports facility.  Whoever has that vegetable patch to the left of the donkey has a lot of weeding ahead as the rows of onions, broadbeans and artichokes are awash with glorious wild poppies.

Every old stone wall is a hanging garden at the moment.  Various stone crops, tiny ferns, daisies and figs turn the tumbled down ruins and winding lanes of old Chorio into a wonderful garden at this time of the year.

The grape vines have their new leaves and the housewives use them to make delicious dolmades.  Fresh vine leaves are often picked and frozen or pickled in brine for use later in the year when the leaves on the plants are tough and lack that spring succulence.

Poppies and figs in the Pedi Valley

Hello!  Is it me you are looking for?  A tagged ewe wants to know who is taking her photograph.  Note the furled dracunculi in the background, to her left. That is a really mean wild thistle to her right.  Those are oregano bushes in the background.

Down in the harbour the Symi and the Panagia Skiadeni have started bringing day trippers over from Rhodes on a regular basis and there are definitely more people around.  Foreign property owners are arriving to prepare their houses for the summer season so there are lots of familiar faces around. They are also surveying the damage from one of the wettest winters anyone can remember so there is plenty of painting and airing out of damp furnishings going on.

It has now been dry for about a fortnight so doors and shutters have shrunk to more normal proportions.  The long range forecast shows lots of wind but no definite rain so we are unlikely to have more than one more downpour between now and October.  Temperatures are still fairly cool, just hovering above the 20 mark and there is not much difference between day time and evening temperatures.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Seasonal Occupations

Painting chairs - a seasonal occupation.

Symi's iconic clock tower and police station.

Down in the Pedi Valley - a pretty patchwork of tiny terraced fields defined by old dry stone walls.

There are at least 3 Easter chicks in this photograph, progeny of the free range family that hangs around the skip at the end of my road.  So far Mother Hen has managed to keep them safe from the dozen or so cats that are also part of the colony.

Rural chapel with poppies.

The shoe shop and dress shop near the square in Chorio.  

The new Village Cafe in Chorio is now open.

Wild chamomile growing among the flagstones in Chorio

The April showers have caught up with us just as the first tourists and day trippers of the year are arriving.  The photos in today's blog were taken earlier, when the sun was shining.  It is a murky overcast day today and this unsettled weather is expected to continue tomorrow too.  The forecast for the Easter long weekend, however, is for fine sunny weather.

The general strike on Wednesday was not as disruptive as expected and everyone arrived on time.  As I write the Panagia Skiadeni has just come in with day trippers from Rhodes. With the showery weather the shops and cafes should be busy.  Meanwhile the Easter baking marathon has started.  The grocers and supermarkets have great mounds of cheese, sacks of flour, eggs, sugar and all the traditional ingredients. This weekend the lanes of Chorio will be scented with vanilla and mastic.  There are little sachets of red dye for eggs, sachets of ammonia to use as a raising agent and bottles of orange flower water for flavouring traditional short breads.  Most people do their own baking, using recipes that have been passed down from mother to daughter through the generations.  Plates of homemade delicacies are then shared among friends, family and neighbours, always accompanied by traditional red dyed eggs to break for luck.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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