Annual May visit

[ketut]

It's at this time we would be eagerly anticipating our trip, getting the suitcases ready, picking out the books on my part and checking out the fishing tackle on my husband's part.  The disappointment of not spending time in this special place is acute but we know that in the scheme of things this is a small thing and we will hopefully make the trip to Halki many more times.  But for now I am making virtual trips in my mind - the boat trip over the rough and the smooth, the first view of the island, the greetings we receive from both locals and friends we have met over the years and the walk we take daily over to kania where I relax chat and read and my husband fishes off the jetty by the petrol station.

I think this will have a deviating effect on the local people and their business, but it is my hope that they all keep healthy and safe from this virus and that we will see them all next year.  In the meantime I will have to settle for looking through Steve's photos again.  

😭💗

[Liz]

I've been doing pretty much the same , going through old posts and photo's... I think we are all disappointed but just have to sit tight and dream of next year

[ketut]

Missing Halki so much we imagined sitting outside Valentis under the tree with that beautiful view and we ordered the following meal from the lovely Eleni (only trouble was I had to cook it and we couldn't have the ice cold Mythos). So mezes were taramasalata, houmos, tiropitakia, spinakopitakia, oven baked feta, a tomato salad and psomi. That was followed by pancetta and tiganites pages washed down by a nice red - be with the nice weather we could eat outside to make the experience morem like a Greek evening.

And we would have travelled home last Wednesday. So back at home, I have to say we didn't enjoy the trip as much as last year.

[carol]

Sadly we have cancelled our September trip, the first time we won’t be going for 20 years 😢 Neither of us were happy about sitting on a plane and being in an airport with hundreds of people after being in virtual lockdown for months, we live in Wales and although things are slowly improving ie we can travel 5 miles now, we are weeks behind England, dissapointed doesn’t even touch it but we would rather be safe. However there is a silver lining, we have booked an extra two weeks with Caroline and Yorgos for late June 2021 as well as September, so something to look forward to even if it is a year away.

[jill]

So Carol, you have moved on from “undecided”. We are still waiting to see what happens in the next few weeks but at the moment feel uneasy like you about the journey. Also, just seen that Christo has closed up. Will miss his pitta bread and crab salad.

[ketut]

I have been reading Adriana's Blog - she is married to a Greek and lives on Symi. I thought it was enough like Halki to give me a view of what it was like there for locals during lock down. You may be interested to read her reports and look at the photos she provides to show what social distancing looks like as Greece opens up to tourists again. It will be a very different experience to what we are used to, and although we will miss our time in Halki it may be wise to delay our return for a number of reasons. Adriana was saying that many of the businesses on Symi are not opening up as the amount of visitors is not enough to make it worth their while and I suppose the taverna owners on Halki will have to make the same decisions. I have to say Carol, we are newbies to Halki compared to your 20 years only notching up 7.

[carol]

Hi Ketut, yes I am an avid reader of Adriana's blog and the one recently made very interesting reading, I also read Symi dream the blog written by James Collins an author from the UK who lives on Symi, a different type of blog to Adrianas but interesting all the same. I saw the photos on Facebook that someone took who visited over the weekend and although Halki looked beautiful and very clean it also looked very quiet, now more flights are starting again I am sure they will get visitors and I will be sad we won’t be there but we have two holidays booked there now for next year and as we know time flies and we will soon be returning in more settled times 🤞🇬🇷🌞🌞

[Deleted]

Two or three of the regular posters not been heard of for almost a year!! Hope they are OK??