A Warm Sunny Spring Day on Symi

Lemons in Yialos.  I noticed that all the ones that can be reached safely from the balcony have been picked.  Someone with a ladder will have to take down the rest. Citrus trees carry flowers and fruit simultaneously and the scent is intoxicating.

The shop under the nautical museum at the back of the square in Yialos is opening up for the season. The daisies, on the other hand, open up every day as long as the sun shines and someone remembers to water them!

Either the pot and basket man had a very good weekend and this is all that is left of his stock or he didn't bring much with him this time.  All sorts of things arrive on trucks and in vans at this time of the year and the hawkers bring everything from ropes of garlic to garden furniture to cheap tracky bottoms and trainers.

Open for business on the water front in Yialos.  As it is about 25 degrees today one might want a summer frock or cotton kaftan. As it is cool in the shade or out on a scooter, one might also want a warm scarf.

The shops on Symi are unique and so are their signs. This is the new icon shop near our office.  No perspex and neon on Symi!

The mammoth task of weeding the Kali Strata has begun. The lone municipal employee responsible for this epic job was taking a breather much further down  when I was passing at 8 this morning - he is the blob next to the electricity pole in the middle distance.  

Faded grandeur and fading alexanders near the top of the Kali Strata.

The rose scented geraniums have started to open in the last few days - another fragrance evocative of warm Mediterranean summers.

It is a warm sunny spring day on Symi. It is about 25 degrees, warmer on the sunny side of the harbour, and temperatures will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. Old Symi hands will know that it is not unusual to have the odd day in the 30s in April. Evenings are around 16 degrees centigrade at the moment so a shawl is useful if sitting outside.  There is an amiable buzz of activity in Yialos and everyone has something to do. Even from the splendid isolation of my desk upstairs at Symi Visitor Accommodation I can hear the sound of someone sanding wood by hand in the lane and the distant chink-chink of plaster being chipped off another building near the tinsmith and the buzz  of conversation.

There are also some familiar faces around the island as Symi has devotees who would not dream of coming to Symi at any other time of the year.  I was talking to one of these returnees this morning and this is the first time she has been back in 8 years. She said what struck her was that there were far fewer cars than in the past and far more people seemed to be using bicycles to get around the harbour side, making it quieter than it was when she left here, shortly before the global economic downturn really kicked in. An unexpected bonus of the punitive austerity measures that have made it too expensive for many Greeks to keep their cars on the road.

The Blue Star Diagoras is off to have her bottom scraped and other essential annual maintenance done so the smaller, nippier Blue Star Paros is taking over the route for a few weeks.  Although the ferry schedules are available on the respective ferry company websites, not all routes are bookable at the moment so if you are trying to book tickets on line, please be patient.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Busier by the Day

Calm seas early on Friday morning.  The monastery over on Nimos is just catching the morning sun.  Trucks are gathering by the clock tower, waiting for the Friday morning Blue Star Diagoras.

The Panagia Skiadeni has resumed service from Rhodes on a regular basis so there is a lot more fresh stuff in the shops.  This photograph was taken yesterday,  in a brisk cold breeze.  We have had strong north-westerly winds all week which have kept temperatures below 20 degrees.

The Poseidon is back in the water and round the island excursions will be starting soon.

This old building on the waterfront belongs to Panormitis monastery.  The downstairs is now a shop but the elaborate pediment houses an icon to St Michael the archangel.

This old vine hasn't seen any formal attention for many a year but is still flourishing.  That curly bracket on the wall, just to the right of the main stem, is a latch, to hold the door open.

Swallows posing on a cornice of the clinic in Chorio.

Still life with chapel and lone black sheep.

Same chapel, different day, different sheep!  The cold wind has blown away the haze and visibility has been very good this week.  That is Pedi bay in the background.

Not all of my neighbours are sheep.  I spotted this chap on my way to work this morning.

It  has been a chilly week with lots of northerly winds but temperatures are forecast to rise into the mid twenties next week.  If we don't have rain in the next fortnight or so, that will be that until October as it is very rare to have rain in the second half of May.  It is about a month since we last had rain and the ground is starting to harden and crack. The drying wind is speeding up the rate at which the vegetation is wilting and the sheep, donkeys, ponies and goats are munching as fast as they can.  Unless we have a late shower to give the plants a boost, by the time the first package holiday arrivals start to come in mid-May Symi's greenery will just be a distant memory.

The island grows busier by the day. The Panagia Skiadeni is in nearly every day now, bringing small numbers of day trippers from Rhodes plus supplies for the shops on the island.  More businesses are opening up and there is a steady trickle of new arrivals including walking groups, artists, writers, botanists and those who enjoy Symi in the spring and aren't forced to plan their vacations around school holidays.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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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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Wet Paint and White Spirit

Happy Easter to our Catholic and Protestant friends.  Greek Orthodox Easter is still a week away.  This is a display of the traditional decorated candles that Orthodox Christians use to celebrate the Resurrection.  Many people make their own to give as gifts but these brightly coloured ones are designed with children in mind.

Pedi after the rain earlier in the week.

Cars and trucks lined up at the clock tower, waiting for the Blue Star Diagoras on Wednesday morning.

I have often wondered what the story is behind this bad-tempered face on a pediment up in Chorio.

A traditional meander pattern on a house on the Kali Strata. 

An invisible cat in Chorio.  The edge of the building looks a bit nibbled because it has been clipped repeatedly by various small cars and trucks squeezing along the lane on the right.

One of the few remaining overhanging eaves on the island.

Another face. This one reminds me a little of the Green Man motif found in so many old English churches.

April is the month for spring-cleaning, painting and decorating in preparation for the forthcoming tourist season.  Similar scenes to this are to be seen all round the harbour and Chorio.

The excursion boats and water taxis are still out on the hard in Harani and Rhodes so their berths are vacant. 

Poppies and corona daisies provide a natural garden around this house in Chorio.

Pelargoniums in the town square, Yialos.

It is April and down in the harbour there are more people about.  It is a calm dry day, ideal for getting things done.  Although the day boats from Rhodes have not started yet we have some tourists in the form of a school party that came off the big boat from Piraeus this morning.  They would be from one of the islands to the north of us that the Blue Star serves on the Friday route.  They are wandering around the harbour, munching pies from the bakery and taking photos of each other with their telephones.  Presumably they will be heading home when the boat comes through again this evening. None of the tourist businesses in the harbour are open yet - they are still painting, renovating and generally drying out after an extremely wet winter.  The gypsies who specialise in repairing taverna chairs have arrived and everywhere there is the smell of wet paint and white spirit.

Greek Easter is next weekend and we have some visitors arriving during the week but it will be a while yet before the tourist season proper commences.  Greek Easter is very much a Greek holiday and families try to spend it together.  Often it is the last opportunity for everyone to get together until the end of the season.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Spring will Soon be Over

It has been trying to rain properly for days but all we get are passing mud sprinkles and the island is very dry.

Despite the clouds the view from my office window is becoming more summery, with the Panagia Skiadeni and the Symi facing off across the harbour and an increasing number of yachts.

The excursion boat Poseidon, freshly painted and ready to start the season.  She is going out on her shake down cruise on 1 May, weather permitting. 

Yachts and yes, that is a Turkish gulet over there by the clock tower.

The hanging baskets all still look bright and perky.

As do the window boxes.

Composition in grey and terracotta.

Cheery pelargoniums at the back of the town square in Yialos.

April is drawing to a close and spring will soon be over.  Spring is very short on Symi as the days warm up rapidly in May and the rainy season is drawing to a close.  If we don't have some proper rain in the next few days we are unlikely to have any at all again until October.  These are the last cool days.

The first of May is traditionally a bank and political holiday in Greece, celebrated by going out into the countryside and gathering flowers which are then hung as posies or garlands on the entrance to ones home. There are also likely to be strikes and demonstrations in Athens, but that is a long way from our little island.  As it has been such a dry spring there are few suitable wild flowers left to gather on Symi but most householders have flowering plants around their homes at the moment, even though gardens in the conventional sense are very rare on Symi.  With the houses so densely packed together and the terrain so steeply inhospitable, the forefathers of Symi expended little effort in hewing gardens out of the rocky hillsides on which they built their houses.  Until recently there was little or no water to spare for frivolous flower gardens as everyone was entirely dependent on harvesting the winter rains in cisterns to survive the summer and there was no prospect of water from any other source. These days we have a small desalination plant on the Pedi road, augmented by water ships coming over from Rhodes, but Symi is still a famously dry island and we all have to do our best to make what water we have last as long as possible.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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April Postcards from Symi

Lush new vine leaves reaching for the sky from this old courtyard on the Kali Strata.  This is when we switch from making dolmades with cabbage leaves to the better known ones made with fresh vine leaves.

The Vapori bar is open for the summer and Bella Napoli has rolled up the plastic tent and switched to summer mode.  The greengrocer is, of course, open all year round.

The fuel ship, preparing to come stern to in Yialos.  It is too big to come in at the bunkering jetty at the fuel station so the fuel is driven round the harbour in tankers. 

Judging by the paint swatch below, perhaps somebody else apart from myself thought that radiant raspberry might be a bit dazzling for the largest building on Symi.  No, it is not a fire station - it is our new undercover sports facility.

Wow.

Still no signs of life at the Windmill Restaurant in Chorio but it should be opening in a few weeks, once the weather is guaranteed to be settled.  I don't know about you but I find the pink of the oleanders particularly attractive when juxtaposed with the delicate green of the doors and gates.

Another one of my favourite views, from the top corner of the Kali Strata, before one begins the descent to Yialos.  The Diagoras was about an hour late this morning, which is considerably better than Wednesday when it was still catching up with Easter traffic.  As it goes to Kastellorizon on Fridays it will, however, be late leaving Rhodes this evening.

There is an elusive foal learning the route at the moment.  Camera shy, it kept skipping in among the adults when I tried to photograph it and my rather basic Nikon was just not fast enough to catch up.  You can just see a glimpse between the two horses on the right.  The foals learn all the routes around the island but only start to carry loads when they are fully grown and their backs are strong enough to take sacks of cement, stones, bricks and builders' rubble.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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