Sunshine After Rain

Most of the wild anemones in my garden were buried under rubble in the big storm on 13 November 2017 but this one survived and is putting on a brave show.

The big valonia oak at Lieni is very confused by the mild winter temperatures and is still hanging on to a lot of last year's leaves.

I was pleased to see that some long-overdue work is finally being done on the roof of the old pharmacy building in Chorio.

After weeks of rain and damp weather, washing lines are blossoming all over Chorio.

The wonderful miniature gardens of dainty ferns and moss that sprout in the dry stone walls and ruins of Chorio during the rainy months of winter are a seasonal delight.

The blue shutters are part of the museum in Chorio.

What could be more Mediterranean than ripening oranges against a clear blue sky?

Looking at massive sheets of impermeable rock like this, it is hardly surprising that flash floods and torrential rainwater run off are a problem in the rainy season.  There is literally nothing to hold the water.

A cold blue sea.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office this morning.  Calm seas and cloudless skies make a pleasant change after weeks of rain followed by last week's gales.

Well, I didn't get to Rhodes on Friday. The Force 9 winds in the Aegean threw out the Blue Star's schedule by about 18 hours so I shall be trying again on Wednesday.   There are only two possibilities for a day trip to Rhodes from Symi - Wednesday and Friday.  As both are with the Blue Star, the bigger weather picture has an impact on this.

The weather is expected to change again on Thursday with rain forecast for Friday.  At the moment midday temperatures are around 14 degrees, falling to around 10 degrees at night.  Places that are in the shade most of the day are significantly colder.  Places that face south and are getting 8 hours of sunshine are much warmer.  Location, location!

Symi is very quiet with few people about.  Netflix must be doing well at weekends as on a Sunday Chorio is deserted.  The bus is still in Rhodes which also limits activities.  What goes down must go back up again and those Kali Strata steps give pause for thought when carrying shopping bags.  Those who live in Chorio, shop in Chorio.

Speaking of shopping bags, Greece is implementing the requirement to charge for single use plastic bags.  Signs in Greek and English are popping up, even in the shops on Symi, although I have not known anyone yet be charged the 4 cents per bag.  Another change regulars might notice this year is that Symi, like many other remote Greek islands, has lost its tax concession due to the bail-out requirements so VAT is now 24%. 

Unlike many other countries, Greeks have to pay VAT on all foods so this is going to be quite inflationary for the locals.  At the moment it is not quite clear which things will be at 24% and which at 13%, 17%, 9% or any other random number you would care to think of but presumably this will all be sorted out in the coming weeks.  Symiot shopkeepers seem to be trying to absorb as much of the increase as possible themselves but it is quite a hike so they won't be able to keep this up for long, particularly as the cost of getting stuff onto the island has also gone up.  We are certainly seeing far more cheap Bulgarian imports in the shops than we used to and far fewer items from more distant parts of Western Europe.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Making Plans for the Summer

Where's mummy?  The lambing season is well under way.  The ewes are tethered wherever grazing is plentiful and the lambs romp around, dashing back to mum whenever they want a drink at the milk bar.

Wild clematis flowering on my fences.

My neighbour's doves.  They live in dovecots in his smallholding and he comes every day to train them.  They fly up in ever higher spirals and then come swooping down when he signals to them.

Another grey Monday but this time it seems all the rain fell over Rhodes and Turkey.  So far there hasn't been any here.

The first wild cyclamens are flowering in the Pedi valley. This picture is slightly fuzzy as it was a zoom from a long way off.  It is starting to look as though I may be needing to think about a new camera.

The magical miniature wiinter gardens of  stone crops, moss and tiny ferns are also flourishing.

An impressive lemon crop in Lieni, Chorio.

Looking across the harbour at Mavrovouni and the Drakounta valley from the top of the Kali Strata.  Nowhere is very far from anywhere else when you are on Symi, 

Harani and the Mouragio area of the harbour are deserted at this time of the year.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office seems to have a recurring fishy theme at the moment.

After a clear cold bright weekend we woke up to grey skies this morning.  It is raining everywhere around us except actually on Symi.  The weather is expected to clear tonight and remain dry for the rest of the week with moderate temperatures between 10 at night and 14 at midday.

The days are slowly lengthening and nature is waking up.  The first wild cyclamens are flowering in the valley, the wild clematis is covered in creamy bells and the citrus trees are weighed down with lemons. There is the feeling that things are starting to happen again.

The Blue Star put on a special trip on Sunday, returning this afternoon, to compensate for not being able to stop at Symi due to the heavy weather on Friday.

While Symi may still be hunkered down in winter mode, people are making plans for the summer and we are receiving lots of inquiries for July, August and September.  In a place like Symi where there are no big tourist developments and most tourist accommodation is in restored traditional houses, the early bird usually gets the pick of the bunch.  If you are thinking of coming to Symi this summer, don't put off booking for too long, particularly if you have very specific requirements. Email us for advice, rates and availability.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Wind and Wood Smoke

A cold and choppy sea.

It was so rough this morning that the Blue Star Patmos did not stop, leaving lots of frustrated travelers fuming on the dock.

Pigeons may have small brains but they are certainly sensible.  This cornice on the National Bank is a nice warm sunny spot, out of the wind!

It may be a bit bumpy in the  harbour today but in the winter, when there are few boats and all the tourist trappings are packed away, the view of Symi's distinctive neo-classical architecture is unobstructed. That long stone building with the light green woodwork in the middle of this photograph is the highly-acclaimed Old Markets hotel.

The bus stop in Yialos.  The blue bus is the one that serves Panormitis monastery. Conspicuous by its absence is the yellow bus which serves the Yialos-Chorio-Pedi route as it is still away for maintenance.  Those cubes on the quay to the right are pallets of stone flags, similar to the ones already laid around the centre of the harbour, so we can expect a continuation of the paving project in the near future.  The ramp at the far left leads to the high school, the upper section of the Kali Strata and Chorio. 

It is not just the architectural detail that  is revealed when the sunhats and beach towels are packed away.  Walking back from the ATM at the Alpha bank this morning I noticed that this tourist shop is using an Easter themed plastic table cloth (plastic table cloths are sold by the metre in Greece) as a partition.  The other side is rather more sophisticated wood paneling as it is a posh boutique.

Breakfast for some of the street cats of Yialos. Symi Animal Welfare and various dedicated locals look after the various cat colonies in Yialos, Chorio and Pedi during the winter when taverna pickings are lean.  The shiny bag on the left seems to have shoes in it and has probably blown off the table so this is not a Symi interpretation of  the fairy story, 'Puss in Boots'!

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office this morning.  It is not particularly obvious but the boats are all rolling in the swell.

Work has started on the new road from the new commercial harbour.  Apparently it will curve around the hill and join the existing road just beyond the bend at the top, where you can see that blue tanker parked. When the harbour is completed, the big boats will dock there instead of by the clock tower and heavy vehicles will go up the new road and over the hill to the Pedi road where all the warehouses are, significantly cutting down on heavy traffic passing along the waterfront in Yialos.  

It is a cold, clear and windy day on Symi.  Temperatures are not expect to rise above 6 degrees centigrade today and with the wind chill it is actually only just above freezing.  Water froze in exposed places overnight and there was ice on the mountain.  Tonight is expected to be even colder. When I venture out of the office I can smell wood smoke from all directions as there are cast iron wood burners in several of the surrounding businesses and homes.

The Blue Star was unable to dock in Symi this morning.  Regular readers of this blog will remember that this was often the case in the days of the Diagoras (now ploughing the waves between Morocco and the Canary Islands) but it is unusual for the more modern Patmos with its sophisticated bow thrusters and more efficient underwater profile to chicken out. We hope she can dock on the way back from Rhodes tonight as this is the island's supply line for post, food, fresh produce etcetera and the next vehicle connection with Rhodes is next Wednesday! The Dodecanese Seaways catamaran should come through tomorrow en route to Kos but this only has limited vehicle and freight capacity and doesn't have the height to take trucks and vans.

Have a warm weekend wherever you are.  It is now less than two months to the spring equinox!

Regards,
Adriana

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January Postcards from Symi

An empty sea.  A surprisingly clear and unobstructed view from the bus stop in Yialos.

What is not so obvious in the previous picture and is only just visible in this one, although it was blindingly clear in reality, is the snow on the far mountain peak in the middle of the photograph.  If you can zoom your screen you should be able to see it.  It is not often that one can see snow from the bus stop in Yialos, Symi, even in January!

All the rain has perked up the wild oregano bushes and they are rapidly transforming from clumps of dry twigs to sprouts of perky aromatic green leaves. The leaves are actually too pungent to use fresh except in very small quantities. Traditional Greek rigani is actually the dried flower buds, gathered fresh in late spring and then dried in the shade and rubbed off their stalks.

Feral Fred, posing with his best side to the camera on the road through Lieni.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office on Tuesday.  It was pouring with rain on Monday, the road around the harbour was closed for work outside the coastguard office and in any case there was no bus - it is away for its annual maintenance - so I came down on Tuesday instead.  Unfortunately Tuesday was just as wet, with the excitement of a severe hailstorm in the early evening.  This was the scene from the window around midday. The floating crane was taking core samples in the middle of the harbour.

You know there is nothing much happening on the island when the floating crane warrants two photographs!

Friday morning and a dry day at last.  Quite a windy sky though and temperatures are falling again as the wind is from the north.  It is expected to stay dry at least until Sunday evening but as we have had so many showers that have appeared from nowhere, despite any forecast, anything is possible.

A bit of old Hellenistic dry stone walling that has been quietly minding its own business for a couple of thousand years.  Symi doesn't have big ticket 'must see' tourist attractions like Rhodes or Athens, but wherever you look you are surrounded by history.  The island has been continuously inhabited for at least 3000 years and that makes for a lot of recycling of stones and artifacts.  In a turbulent world, it gives a pleasing sense of continuity to know that people have been building stone walls, planting olives and tilling terraces for all those centuries and will continue to do so.

The recent extreme cold finally persuaded the deciduous trees to take a break and have a winter nap.  This is the big Valonia oak in Lieni, Chorio.

A Symi Romeo and Juliet.  I spied these two, exchanging amorous yowls, on my walk to work this morning.  I wonder if he finally plucked up the courage to leap across the divide and consummate the relationship.

One of the lanes in Yialos.  This one is home to a hardware store, a butchery, a bakery, a supermarket, the Symi Flower shop, a kiosk which also sells newspapers and is the Speedex agency and a shoe shop.  The tourist shops and boutiques are closed but the essentials that the Symiots need all year round are still open.

The view from Symi Visitor Accommodation today.  A much more inspiring sight than Tuesday's view and the sunny side of the harbour looks quite promising, even if the tourist shops are all closed.

The two big anchors on the quay in front of the Symi Visitor Accommodation office have had a fresh coat of paint.  This is the stretch where the water taxis and excursion boats line up in the summer.  The hill in the background is Mavrovouni, a most desirable neighbourhood at this time of the year as it gets the most hours of sunshine.  We have two rental properties there, Spiti Grand Helene and Villa Iris.  

Looking along the shady side of the harbour.  Yes, just to the right of the anchor you can see a BBQ, handy for spontaneous fish grilling should the opportunity arise.  Greeks don't need fancy equipment to produce delicious food.  Just good fresh ingredients and a love of the simple things in life.

Now that the Twelve Days of Christmas are behind us, the 'comfy chairs' is doing a spot of spring-cleaning.  If you are familiar with the traditional Greek wooden cafeneion chair, you will understand why this particular Symi coffee shop quickly became known as the 'comfy chairs'!  

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Serene Symi

8.30 in the morning and the sun is just creeping over Chorio.  After a week of wet and stormy weather, it is nice to see blue skies for a change.

Wild clematis is a common sight during the winter, tumbling over walls and fences and scrambling in the trees.  In the summer drought this, like so many other indigenous plants on the island, becomes dry brown scrubby stuff that looks as though it died years ago.

Drifts of oak leaves in Lieni.

I didn't see any people on my walk down the Kali Strata this morning but I did meet a hen, trimming the verges.

And her mate, striking a pose.

Why did the chicken cross the Kali Strata?

The only other living thing I saw on the Kali Strata this morning also had feathers.

Oranges don't seem to mind neglect. This garden has not been tended for years.

An unusual sight, particularly as it is a beach towel.

Firewood delivery.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office this morning.

It is a clear cold winter's day on Symi and the sky was clear enough last night for us to enjoy the full moon. The lull between storms gives us all a chance to dry out a bit before the next round of wet weather reaches us on Sunday.  Midday temperatures have risen to around 14 degrees centigrade, falling to 9 degrees at night - quite mild really after the recent bitter cold we have experienced. The rain will start again on Sunday and last until midweek, with on going mild temperatures and no strong winds expected over the next few days.

Symi is very quiet now.  The holidays are over and the children are back at school. The students have all returned to their universities and colleges around the country.  All the tourist businesses are closed.  It is only essential amenities that serve the needs of the community such as supermarkets, banks, pharmacies and so on that are still open. I am often the only person on the bus on the two days in the week that I come down into the harbour and bus runs a very limited schedule now.

The cafes and gyros bars that have stayed open have their plastic drop cloths and outdoor heaters in place.  They don't have much in the way of indoor seating and in any case the whole reason for going out for coffee at this time of the year is to escape the confines of home and look at something different. Symi's traditional  neoclassical houses are actually quite small when one cannot use terraces, courtyards and balconies.  When the weather is wet the shutters have to stay closed to keep the water out, making them quite dark and gloomy in the winter, so sitting inside a clear plastic tent, looking at the harbour, is an attractive treat.    

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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