Winter Sun

A Rainbow over Evangelismos Church, Harani, Symi

Frost on Oxalis Leaves in the Pedi Valley -

Shady places often don't get any sun at all at this time of the year and form frost pockets.

A Bee enjoying a Sunny Interlude in my Rosemary

Deserted - Rhodes Harbour on 31 January 2011

Note the snowcaps in the distance

The View from Room 307, the Hermes Hotel, Mandraki, on 31 January 2011

This is the longest break there has ever been in my blog, since I wrote my first Symi Latest News column in March 2001, long before the word blog had been coined to describe an on line diary. In that time it has changed from a webpage on which Mike Gadd, our webmaster, would email the text I sent him as the dial up connections here were too slow to cope, to bloggerdotcom which I can update myself here on Symi, making use of the Connx connection. From no pictures through to 480x640 resolution pictures to the much higher resolution photographs I can post today, the Latest News from Symi has come a long way as technology has advanced. I wonder what changes the next 10 years will bring to this page of news from Symi.


After 2 months of travelling and visiting my family in South Africa I returned to chilly Rhodes on Sunday evening. As the first ferry across to Symi was on Monday evening I had plenty of time to recover from the journey and do a spot of shopping before catching the Proteus across to Symi. The far mountain peaks of Turkey were clearly visible, snowcaps twinkling in the winter sun. As you can see, Rhodes is very empty in the middle of winter, with no cruise ships to be seen. Just the regular Blue Star ferries from Pireaus and a few over-wintering yachts.

By all accounts it has been a wet winter in this part of the world with torrential rains in many parts of Greece and Symi is no exception. It started to rain on Thursday afternoon and by 9 a.m this morning we had measured another 50 mm of rain. All the cisterns are full and walking down the Kali Strata this morning, ankle deep in fast flowing water, I was dodging spouts of water from the overflows.

The rain is expected to ease off in the next 24 hours and temperatures will be ranging from 8 to 18 degrees centigrade. A wood fire is as much to dry things out as it is to warm things up and much more economical to run than any other form of heating on the island so there are little plumes of smoke coming from many chimneys in the lanes of Chorio.



Have a good weekend.



Regards,

Adriana