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| The Blue Star Paros whizzing into Yialos on Wednesday morning. It is quite nice having a big boat that is actually fairly punctual as the Diagoras was often very late. People living in the harbour may, however, be heartily sick of 'Fur Elise' by the end of the summer! |
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| Getting the tiles on - the customs house is rapidly taking shape. |
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| It is the Greek Pentecost long weekend and power boats are starting to arrive from Rhodes for the holiday. |
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| An enthusiastic grapevine at the top of the Kali Strata. |
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| One of the hundreds of small rural chapels on Symi. That is Pedi bay shining in the background. |
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| Not a thing of beauty but I thought you might be interested to see one of the realities of Symi life. This is the water supply box at the end of our road, fed by the pipe from the reservoir at Agia Marina. Each of these pipes snakes off to a small holding in the valley, including my own. When our pipe was connected there 15 years ago there were only 4 pipes being served by this supply point and when the water was on we got a reasonable amount. Now, as more and more people are returning to the land and making use of their family plots, the number of pipes has increased to what you see now. Unfortunately the supply to that point remains the same so the pressure has dwindled to a trickle for those of us uphill of this point. In theory we are supposed to receive water three mornings a week. In practice what we receive is negligible as water flows most readily down hill, to the plots lower down in the valley. As it was a very dry winter this year our cisterns were never completely filled from the roof and we are already about half way through our rainwater harvest so at some point we will have to speak nicely to our various down hill neighbours and ask them to all switch off their taps one water day so that we can get our ration. Symi has no natural water source and in the summer the water supply is a combination of the small desalination plant on the Pedi road and occasional shipments from Rhodes where there is a spring. |
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| St John's wort in Lieni |
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| And finally, a photogenic Symi sunflower. |
Symi may still be unusually quiet considering that we are halfway through June but it is also very hot and it is unmistakably summer. We had some late red rain showers and strong gusty winds on Tuesday as the tail end of the weather system that caused floods and storms in the Western Mediterranean blew itself out over us. The thermometer is rising steadily now and is currently in the mid to high thirties, dropping to around 22 degrees at midnight. Symi's rocky landscape is soaking up the heat like a storage heater so night time temperatures will continue to rise and are often around 35 degrees in July. A major heatwave is forecast for the whole of Greece for the next few days and some parts of Greece including the mainland and Crete may see temperatures in the forties. If you are desperate for some summer sunshine, Symi is the place to be!
Have a good weekend.
Regards,
Adriana
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