Spring has come early to Symi this year. The valley is luminous with daisies, wild cyclamens, cistus, asphodels, sorrel, almond blossom and lupins. As you can see, the dandelions and moss are taking over the Kali Strata.
A strong south-easterly weather front passed through on Monday, causing Dodecanese Seaways and Stavros boats to cancel their Monday routes. Dodecanese Seaways is running today, Wednesday, instead. The Stavros came through Symi on Tuesday but with an abridged route. It looks like more of the same on Friday. South-easterly storms are problematic because they trigger a heavy swell in Rhodes harbour, affecting docking, and many of the small island ports served by Dodecanese Seaways and the Stavros are not safe in any kind of bad weather. Torrential rain on Monday also temporarily closed Rhodes airport as the runway was flooded and visibility reduced to zero.
Today is the one year anniversary of the horrific train crash near Tempe in northern Greece, in which 57 people were killed. The victims included many young people returning home for the Carnival holidays. There is a countrywide civil service and transport strike today as part of the commemoration and to highlight the poor conditions in which state employees have been working for years. The air traffic controllers strike which was scheduled for today was deemed illegal by the Civil Aviation Authority so that has been cancelled but other disruptions are going ahead.
On a more cheerful note, next Thursday, 7 March is Tsiknopemti (Smokey Thursday) as well as Dodecanese Day, the day on which the Dodecanese islands were incorporated into the modern Greek state. As the former is celebrated with copious quantities of grilled meat and the latter by a public holiday with parades and folk dancing in Yialos, everyone is hoping for good weather and a great party.
Adriana Shum 
Thank you for all your information and pictures. Here in cheshire it is cold and wet and spring seems a long way off even though the plants are starting to protrude. Although your winds seem problematical and the rain. Good knitting weather. Just hope we get a summer.