May Postcards from Symi

The view from the office window is getting busier.  This was the scene at 8 a.m. this morning. The power boat was anchoring and the yacht was leaving.

Yialos on Sunday. Few of the tavernas and restaurants have any indoor space so they set up their tables and chairs in the street, for which they pay the town hall a fee each year.

Even the view through my favourite 'gap' on the Kali Strata is busier these days.

A May Day posy at the newsagents in Yialos.

May Day posies as the shoe shop and the supermarket.

 A May Day wreath in Chorio.

Damask roses in my garden. These are the wonderfully perfumed roses that are used to make rose water and attar of roses for the perfume industry.  Their name derives from Damascus in Syria which gives a clue to their historic origins.  They have a very short season, only flowering for a few weeks in late April and early May each year, unless there is rain, in which case the petals surrounding the buds shrink and they fail to open - that's it then until the following year.  One of life's little treats that money cannot really buy!

Doves in Lieni.