Christmas, Cabbages and Conifers

An early sign of Christmas on a shop in Chorio. So far everyone in the harbour has been too busy with the mud to worry much about putting up decorations but in the parts of Chorio that escaped unscathed, there are few tentative tokens of festive cheer.

The kiosk at the Kampos bus stop is also feeling festive.

Look at the size of those cabbages from Kalymnos!

Not much happening in Yialos this week.

The bridge survived surprisingly unscathed considering the thousands of tons of rocks, cars and rubble that rammed into it.  The figures in red just visible on the far side of the bridge, near the fish market, are electricians replacing the lights on the bridge which were smashed. The water is still muddy as there is still mud draining away from the square and the back of the harbour.

Yialos square this week.  Until the last of this red mud washes away, the water at the head of the harbour will remain muddy.  To the right of the digger, and the no entry sign there is a brown pile of what look like turfs. This is actually the synthetic surface for the children's playground. This has all had to be lifted as the playground was buried under mud.

Away from the mud zone, on the lower steps of the Kali Strata, the Virginia creeper lights up the stone steps.

One day someone will doubtless come along and hack away the creeper to restore the abandoned building behind it but in the meantime let us enjoy its luminous beauty.

Empty seas and startling contrasts.  My humble camera cannot cope with such extremes of light and shade.

Thomas, the patriarch skip cat on my corner, sunning himself with Chorio in the background.

Chorio in the sun, Nimborio in the shade.  You can see the scars of new wash-aways and water courses on the steep cliffs that form the northern shore of Nimborio bay.

You are looking at the roots of a large cypress tree in what was a terrace at the top of my property.  We didn't have any cypress trees, either vertical or horizontal, before 13 November.  This tree washed at least 100 metres down the Agia Marina river from the cemetery or even further up the hill.  The stones that tumbled down with it stripped the bark off the trunk, leaving the wood exposed.  An extreme delivery of winter firewood!

The rest of the tree.  It neatly rammed between two Kermes oaks, destroying old stone walls and an old shepherd's croft in the process.   Those little colourful bits of red and blue are the remains of plastic flowers from the cemetery. There is a trail of them all the way down into the valley.

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Symi Epiphany 2017

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office during the rain storm on Tuesday afternoon.  If you ever go to the webcam at this time of the year and it isn't working, it is because we have unplugged everything due to stormy weather.  As most of Symi's utility lines are above ground lightning strikes do a lot of damage, travelling down telephone lines as well as along power lines, and sorting out the damage can take weeks on a small island so we have to err on the side of caution.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office this morning as the crowds gather for the Epiphany celebrations.  Similar booths decorated with oranges are erected at Harani, Pedi and Panormitis.

You can see the oranges and the icon quite clearly here. The priest and the mayor are behind all that foliage.

The priest casts the cross into the water from which it is retrieved by the young boys, hence the lad in the bathing trunks while everyone else is wrapped up against the cold.

Splash!

Heading back to dry land for towels, warm clothes and a year of blessings.

A fire burning near Bozburun on the Turkish coast this morning.

A plume of smoke of a very different sort.  Many Symiots use wood-burners in the winter to keep warm as these are quite economical to run and some versions can even be used for cooking.  We can't buy fancy smoke-less fuel here.  Firewood tends to be whatever is available.  The Minister of the Environment appealed to the population earlier this week to avoid using wood fires as they are causing a smog problem in the larger towns and cities.  Unfortunately he did not make any practical suggestions as to what people can realistically do for alternative heating in austerity Greece.

In the absence of heating it is not just the humans who wrap up warmly at this time of the year.  Even the cats plump out with much thicker coats.

It has been a stormy week in Greece and there is more to come as Storm Ariadne brings bitterly cold air down from Siberia.  Much of Greece will be at freezing or below this weekend and early next week.  Even here on Symi we can expect a high of 6 and a low of 4 tomorrow, Sunday and Monday.  Athens will be colder than London, Paris or Rome this weekend and the Athens municipality has announced that the main metro stations will be open to the homeless to shelter from the extreme temperatures.  No one gets hosed down with cold water in shop fronts here as there is a realisation that homelessness is not a lifestyle choice.

The Blue Star came through as scheduled this morning although those travelled on her from Piraeus reported a bumpy ride due to strong winds in the Aegean.

Have a warm weekend, planning your next Symi holiday with Wendy and myself at Symi Visitor Accommodation.

Regards,
Adriana

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