Silvery Snail Trails

A perfectly clear and blindingly blue winter's day on Symi. It is about 12 degrees centigrade. The stones are slick with dew and cross-hatched with silvery snail trails. Little forests of luminous moss and frilly lichen, toppling toadstools and festoons of pale green clematis bells-who needs to buy Christmas decorations when nature does such a good job of providing her own? The wobbly lambs of Easter are already grazing on the road out of the harbour, using their mothers as wind breaks. There is one particularly fetching little fellow, all black apart from a tidy white tonsure, who lives just above the bend in the road. His mother is usually tethered to one of the benches. Purple anemones are nodding in the chilly breeze and the anise scent of crushed fennel leaves under foot evokes the icy ouzo of hot summer days.

At this stage it looks as though we may well have rain for New Year as the stormy weather that has been rolling steadily across the southern Mediterranean is expected to reach Greece in the course of Monday, bringing heavy showers and strong winds in the Ionian and the Aegean. Serious storms are not unusual this close to the solstice and if anything we have been lucky that the festive season has been so mild this year. Fingers crossed, though, that we are not looking at a repeat of the year when New Year's Day dawned with two lightning strikes that fried most of Symi's telephones, televisions and other appliances!

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana