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| Wednesday's southerly gales left us choking in a cloud of Saharan sand when the wind stopped. This was Pedi bay on Thursday morning. |
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| Nimos lost in the haze. The Navy came in to shelter from Wednesday's storm and were still tied up alongside on Thursday morning. |
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| The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office balcony on Thursday morning. A municipal employee was riding slowly around the harbour, hoisting bunting from a cherry picker for Friday's parade. |
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| Friday morning and Nimos is back! |
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| A relic of Clean Monday a fortnight ago - the mangled remains of a kite, wrapped around a power line in Chorio. All the power and telephone cables on Symi are above ground which is why they are very vulnerable in stormy weather and lightning damage is common in the winter. |
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| The poultry man has arrived, selling chicks and ducklings. He was feeding his chirruping family when I walked past this morning. People don't keep poultry as pets here - they are an economic necessity, keeping families in eggs and meat through the year, and in these days of austerity many more Symiots are returning to their agrarian past, keeping livestock and growing produce in gardens and family plots in the Pedi valley and other sheltered areas on the island. |
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| There aren't quite as many family donkeys as there used to be but these two still see regular service. Cheaper to maintain than an SUV and they give you manure for the vegetable garden. |
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| I never did manage to work out what this cat was watching so intently on the Kali Strata. It was perched on a very precarious flat stone at the top of the wall, staring up at the building behiind, and evidently deaf as is so often the case with white cats as it did not move at all when I went passed. |
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| The poppies are back. |
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| Spring greenery in the Pedi Valley. |
It has been a wild week with a south-easterly Force 9 gale on Wednesday that is still disrupting shipping 3 days later as the
Blue Star still hasn't caught up with itself after only being able to leave Rhodes at 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening, without stopping at Symi and about 6 hours later than scheduled so the Thursday/Friday schedule was also knocked out, resulting in the Friday night 7 p.m. from Rhodes only actually passing through Symi in the early hours of this morning.
At one stage on Wednesday Rhodes airport was actually closed as conditions were so bad that planes could not land safely and flights diverted to Dalaman (which was also having problems) and Antalya or returning to Athens - an exciting start for the first charter flights coming into Rhodes for 2016. The wind brought with it a great dust cloud from North Africa, a common occurrence at this time of the year, hence the photographs at the top of this blog. Luckily the anticipated rain passed to the north of us as when it rains in these conditions it is the dreaded Red Rain (Blood Rain if you are Sicilian) that covers everything in a crust of fine red dust which is very difficult to remove. The wind has now switched to the north, bringing clear skies and a fall in temperatures once again, a reminder that it is still winter in Russia and the Ukraine.
If you follow our Facebook page and Twitter feed you will have seen photographs of the braziers around the harbour and up to Evangelismos church on Thursday night, heralding the eve of the Annunciation. Fridays parade went off without a hitch and, despite the forecasts, was neither too windy nor wet. That's it for our month of long weekends and it is time to knuckle down to some serious fasting as Greek Easter does not arrive 1 May so there are no more distractions and frivolities. April will be a month of preparations for the forthcoming summer tourist season.
Have a good weekend.
Regards,
Adriana
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