April Postcards from Symi
Category: Seasons on Symi
Symi Spring-cleaning and April Showers
Actually to call them April Showers is a bit of an understatement. Deluge is more like it and on Monday the rain was so heavy that all the water courses flowed, coming down in torrents through the square in Yialos, under the bridge and into the harbour. The water remained muddy for several hours after that. Lightning strikes knocked out phone lines in parts of Chorio and a number of home owners had floods indoors when their roof gutters failed to cope with the downpours. An inconvenient quirk of Symi’s pretty neo-classical architecture is that the gutters are channels in the tops of the walls, converging on some sort of down pipe inside the wall leading to the house’s rainwater cistern. If the down pipe gets blocked or the rain is so heavy that it cannot drain away down the pipe fast enough, the gutters overflow over the sill under the eaves and down the inside of the house. Very exciting if you are inside at the time – but worse to come back to if your house has been closed up for the winter and no one has been inside to clean up the resultant mess.
Greek Easter falls on the last weekend of April this year, giving everyone a bit more time to prepare for the start of the Easter. Just as well really, considering that there is yet more rain forecast for Monday next week. The charter flights into Rhodes started about a week ago and Dodecanese Seaways started a daily catamaran service to Symi this week. This was a bit of a mixed blessing as the weather disrupted the schedule and some people experienced a very bumpy ride on Wednesday. Mal de mer aside, I have seen a few tourists about, exploring Pedi on foot with Nordic poles (Tuesday) and with hire bikes (Thursday). Neither of the tavernas is open at the moment. Apostoli’s is still in boatyard mode and Katsaras is working frantically between storms to get their waterfrontage open. Both minimarkets, however, offer hot coffee and one can buy rolls, chocolate and so on for an impromptu picnic. Of the hotels, the only one that is sort of open is Galini , the small pension on the road, opposite St George’s church.
With the elections coming up, more candidates are coming forward for positions on the town council. Will the status quo be disrupted? This could be interesting! As Brexit has been stalled until October 31 those British expats on the Symi Voters Roll can vote in the Mayoral and EU elections this year, possibly for the last time. Among other things, the opposition candidate, Ilias Tsavaris, is pushing for more resources to be directed to the forgotten areas of Chorio and Pedi. As parts of Chorio still bear the scars of the storm of 13 November 2017 and the old town area, which is where a large proportion of the population lives, has been underfunded for years, this could be a hot ticket. If you are on Facebook, you can keep abreast of all these developments as campaigning hots up.
Meanwhile, the Easter lambs are munching their way through the daisies, the chamomile is fragrant under foot, the tadpoles may or may not turn into frogs and toads and the street lights are back on in Pedi.
Have a good weekend.
Regards,
Adriana
Pedi in the Poppy Season
Pedi Peregrinations
Symi Spring Snapshots
Symi Blues in February
The weekly storms are still vicious but the sunny intervals between them are growing longer and milder. There is a feeling of spring in the air and there are more people around. It is that time of the year where it is warmer outdoors than in and everyone is relishing the sunshine. Walkers of all ages promenade past under the watchful gaze of grazing sheep. The ground is still to water-logged for much agricultural activity. More heavy rain is forecast for the weekend as another storm system passes over Greece. As we near the spring equinox the storms increasingly pass to the north of us so while they may disrupt the big boat schedules they are not as destructive locally.
Wherever one looks on Symi there are bits of history tangled up with the present day. The sense of continuity has a steadying effect. Invaders and occupiers have come and gone and people are still here, growing olives, grazing sheep, fishing …
The photograph at the top of this blog shows the Kastro, Symi’s acropolis. This has been a fortification of one sort or another for thousands of years although the most recent structure was a castle, built by the Knights of Rhodes. Much of the remaining structure were destroyed during the Second World War when the retreating Germans blew up the munitions store they had there but there are still chunks of wall visible. The main habitation was always huddled around the acropolis rather than the sea. Trouble came from the sea. Pirates, invaders – anyone on the shoreline was vulnerable. Ancient settlements tended to be on high ground where you could see trouble coming before it arrived and defend yourself. Symi’s hill tops and mountain peaks are dotted with the remnants of ancient fortifications and settlements. They are not always easy to spot, particularly in the summer months when everything is uniformly dry and patterns are not so easily distinguishable on the landscape.
If you have any topics about Symi that you would particularly like me to focus on please let me know via the comments section or by emailing me or commenting on Facebook. I would love to hear from you.
Adriana
Symi in February
January was wet and windy and so far February has not been much better. They didn’t give a name to the storm that pounded Greece on Tuesday night and Wednesday but it delivered a lot of damage, particularly in Rhodes where large boulders were thrown about by the sea and many small seaside villages and beaches took a hammering. Once again there were shipping bans and flight disruptions as winds topped Force 9, gusting Force 10. There are another 6-8 weeks of winter still to come so it isn’t over yet. Heavy hail storms on high ground took their toll of the new lambs in the mountain pastures on Symi and the local shepherds all have stories to tell.
In the quieter corners the almond blossoms are opening and the countryside is very green. When the sun comes through it can be as much as 20 degrees centigrade, out of the wind. Most of the time, though, midday temperatures are around 14 degrees and last night the thermometer on our car was reading 7 degrees centigrade. The wind makes it seem chilly, particularly as the water has found its way into everything indoors and out. Most Symi houses, regardless of age, have damp problems in the winter. Either condensation turns surfaces black with mould or water seeps through walls, turning green with algae if there is any sunlight. Apparently tea tree oil helps with the mould spores, if one can get hold of it. Everyone else is constantly swabbing down with bleach solution. It is not for nothing that spring painting is an annual necessity.
The bus is back, still running on a reduced winter schedule but much better than wading against the flow in the rain.
We have a few breezy partly cloudy days ahead and then the showers and next rainy spell is forecast to arrive on Monday night or Tuesday morning. As the Blue Star came in from Rhodes last night there should be fresh stuff in the shops this morning. Time to go foraging!
The cover photograph shows some of the sand and gravel that Tuesday night’s storm threw up along the waterfront road in Pedi. The small terracotta fragments are potsherds, fragments of ancient amphora and pithoi that have been smashed and polished by the sea over centuries.
Stormy Symi January 2019
Winter in the Mediterranean may conjure up visions of mild temperatures, sunny days and pavement cafes. This can happen, if you are lucky, but most of the time, particularly in January and February, it can be very wet, extremely windy and, on occasion, even snowy.
This year the snow even crept to sea level in places like Corfu, Skopelos and Thessalonica. Rhodes had heavy snowfalls on the mountain tops and the Evzones found themselves strutting their stuff outside Syntagma, Athens, surrounded by the white stuff.
We have had ferry disruptions of one sort or another every week since December and the Best Western Plaza hotel in Rhodes is offering special rates for Symiots hanging about, waiting for boats and doctor’s appointments.
On a personal note, I have been out of circulation for many weeks, due to severe back problems. A strict regime of bed rest, exercises and medication under the supervision of an orthopaedic specialist in Rhodes seems to be working but I have to be very careful about how much time I spend sitting at the computer and have only recently been able to go for short walks, with the help of a stick. It is unfortunate that the Symi bus is out of circulation so I cannot venture further afield. At the moment my perambulations are strictly local but I can at least provide you with some photographs to give you an idea of what Pedi looks like in January.
Enjoy!
Adriana Shum 