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The latest news & weather from Symi, reported by Adriana Shum from 'The Symi Visitor' office. Adriana's Greek Recipe of the Week>>
Symi
Report; Monday 26th April 2004 It is a cool windy day on Symi. The big boat came this morning but could not dock due to cross winds. This was rather unfortunate, not only for those wishing to embark or disembark, but also because two enormous turbines from the power station which were moved with great difficulty on flat bed trailers to the clock tower area yesterday are likely to be street furniture for a while, until the next big boat to Piraeus docks successfully. They are being sent away for rebuilding. DEH, the electricity company, does the rounds of all the islands in turn, doing various upgrades and maintenance. This week it is Symi's turn. No one envied the crane driver who, although expert at his job had never had to negotiate the delights of Symi waterfront or the low hanging trees on the Pedi road with his crane and trailer! As we watched him inch past the office balcony he was perspiring copiously and bits of lassooed vegetation were visible on the roof of the cab. As it is not beach weather in Rhodes the excursions to Symi are doing well. The harbour is busy with many tour parties listening to sponge talks and enjoying seafood lunches. Visitors to Symi at this time of the year tend to be of mature years so we were rather surprised yesterday when the harbour seemed to be full of noisy Greek teenagers. A school outing from Rhodes to boring old Symi by the looks of it. The gyros bars did well out of them but they were certainly reluctant visitors! The chair stringers are on the island at the moment. They are Roma and live in a cabin under the floor of a truck laden with taverna chairs and bales of manila rope. They come around every spring, restringing chairs with amazing dexterity and adding a touch of the exotic to the town square. Have a good week. Regards,
Symi
Report; Friday 23rd April 2004 The drought broke with a bang in the early hours of Wednesday morning. 42 millimetres of rain descended upon the island over a period of 3 hours. The accompanying thunderstorm knocked out a few television channels and some shops down in the harbour were flooded. By and large the rain was a welcome relief, particularly as it was, unusually for this time of the year, clean rain rather than the muddy stuff and the place is looking better for it. One more downpour like that and the island will be nicely set up for the summer. There were late snowfalls on high ground on the Peloponnese and in Epirus. Antalya, south east of us on the Turkish coast received more rain in 12 hours on Thursday than it had recorded for the whole winter!! The sunlight has been blinding since the storm and the glare off the new whitewash is dazzling. Temperatures are around 20 degrees at midday, dropping to about 10 degrees at night. There is the possibility of another showery spell next week, preceded by some windy weather on Sunday and Monday. Today is Saint George's Day. As the Georges usually lose out to Lent and Easter celebrations this year they are making up for it and every church dedicated to the saint is whooping it up today. The battle of the garden chairs is on with two hawkers set up on the island, one in Chorio and one in the town square. No fancy wrought iron work this week. Just a choice between white or bottle green plastic and some rather uncomfortable looking cane chairs designed for those who like to sit bolt upright. The one in Chorio also has some rather ornate concrete-made-to-look-like-terracotta pots with floral swags around the neck as well as the usual stripes. The one in the harbour is doing a sideline in those cheap Chinese spanner sets that come in moulded plastic cases and are some how not quite metric or imperial, or Whitworth either. Ideal for hurling in the works but not much use for any serious purpose otherwise. Eek! Another tottering truckload has just wobbled past the window - black plastic chairs this time! I think the big boat from Pireus must have just come in. Anyone thinking of making their holiday money selling plastic chairs on Symi, I regret to report that the market is now definitely saturated!
Symi
Report; Monday 19th April 2004 Saturday
was blustery with sporadic drizzle.
Sunday morning was windy with an unexpectedly strong
blast from the south and low cloud hung over the Vigla all
day, turning into a short sharp shower in the late
afternoon. Altogether
we had 5 millimetres of rain – not enough to revive the
flagging trees but enough to wash the dust off the leaves,
perk up the more shallow-rooted vegetation and add a few
centimetres of muddy water from the roof to the
garden-watering cistern. It
is quite cool today and there is still plenty of cloud
about. Nimos
was lost in a fog bank early this morning and it appeared to
be raining hard off shore, between Symi and the Turkish
coast. Thunderstorms
are forecast for this evening and the rest of the week will
remain rather unsettled with the possibility of more showers
to come later in the week. Work
has started on the paving on the quay opposite Pachos, under
the watchful eye of those frequenting the various coffee
shops in the area. Many
of the excursion boats are still on the slipway over at
Harani, having their annual refit.
The fishing caiques, on the other hand, are back in
the water and busy. Every
morning men in oilskins are to be seen handing bundles of
nets ashore and counting their catch into baskets.
Most of this goes straight to the tavernas.
Now that Lent is over, the locals are more interested
in consuming the long-forbidden pork chops and grilled
chicken pieces than yet more ‘fasting food’!
Symi
report; Friday The
fine weather has broken and a brisk northerly wind has
been blowing since yesterday.
There are no local boats running today although the
agents are optimistic that the big boat from Pireaus may yet
succeed in docking later this afternoon.
Fortunately travellers at this time of the year
usually anticipate this kind of thing and there is an air of
excitement rather than anxiety among those camped with
suitcases at the coffee shops.
The temperature has dropped back into the teens and
we may well have some desperately needed rain next week. There
is a hawker selling garden furniture on the island at the
moment. Instead
of the usual stacks of plastic chairs he is selling cane
chairs and cast iron benches.
The only snag is that he seems to have either
mistakenly bought a line in kindergarten furniture or he has
seriously underestimated the size of the average Greek as
everything has a Lilliputian perspective.
Needless to say, sales are slow. Two
large rectangular GRP structures have appeared on the
remaining portion of the town square.
They would appear to be part of the proposed
biological sewage treatment plant.
As each is about the size of a modest railway
carriage it would seem that the Big Hole is going to have to
become considerably bigger and there are various bodies in
evidence wielding tape measures.
More in the next issue of the Symi Visitor. Symi report; Monday April 5th 2004 It seems, judging by the number of emails of condolence I have received, that my pioneering attempts with Brussels sprouts in the Dodecanese have attracted some attention. Unorthodox though it may be, I have found that the tiny undersized buttons are delicious briefly blanched in boiling water and then tossed in warm olive oil flavoured with garlic and served with a squeeze of lemon from the garden. Not a boarding house landlady in sight... Actually that's also a good way of serving the last tiny shoots on the broccoli too before the leaves and stumps go to the chickens. The only clouds in the sky this morning were vapour trails and the season has got off to a good start. Although the package holiday groups have not started to arrive yet, there are plenty of individual day trippers and independent holiday makers around. The Symi Visitor already has its first guests and there has been a steady stream of people through the office this morning. For an idea of what it's like in the harbour today, have a look at the Out and About page... It is now 'Big Week'. The gyros bars have closed the shutters on their grills and are only serving fasting food - octopus sandwiches and taramosalata. This week the Greek television channels devote themselves to every epic ever made - everything from 'Ben Hur' and 'Spartacus' to 'Doctor Zhivago' - apart from the local football channel which has had a frozen frame of a fellow looking down at a piece of paper since last Thursday... (makes one wonder how many of these stations run on autopilot and if there is anybody in there at all) My next report will be next week as Mike Gadd is heading to Symi for a few days and I will next be in the office after Easter. Have a good week and a
peaceful Easter. It's bound to be pretty noisy around
here! Symi report; Friday, April 2nd 2004 Dawn broke on 1 April with gathering clouds and a chilly breeze. By mid morning we had settled into typical Symi April showers - mainly mud with just enough blustery wind to blow the water away and leave the dust behind. The rain gauge only logged 2 mm after 24 hours and we are having more of the same again today. This morning was quite spectacular actually with high purple clouds, patches of low white ones, lots of mist over Pedi and Bosburun and a hazy sun just breaking the top of the hills as I walked to work.
Easter is only a week away
and the baking marathon is well underway. Go into any
grocer and you will be amazed to see women buying cheese by
the wheel and more sugar and flour than most people use in a
year. Meanwhile the lambs are being rounded up.
They are rather small this year, many having been born
prematurely in the bad weather in January and early February,
and the month-long dry spell has meant very little for them to
graze on. It is usually the male lambs that are in
for the chop, being of limited value for any other purpose.
Female lambs are normally only slaughtered if there are not
enough males to meet the requirement for Easter lamb or if the
shepherd's flock cannot be increased.
Although the traditional colour for Greek Easter eggs is red, dye is now available in blue, green and yellow as well and it is a sufficiently competitive industry, albeit seasonal, to warrant television marketing on quite a large scale. Factors such as fading and bleeding of colour through to the egg white inside are important, not just whether it is safe for human consumption. Needless to say eggs are in short supply as everyone is buying them 3 or 4 dozen at a time! ©Adriana Shum 2004 Send Adriana E-Mail News Archives: |Jan 2004|Feb 2004||March 2004|2003|2002|2001| HOME |
