Considering it’s January, we are having exceptionally warm weather. I can tell this as there are more flies about: they always seem to appear once the weather warms up for a couple of days.
I am reliably informed by Martin and Sandy, who live on the other side of the mountains, that this winter has been exceptionally benign and that I should not allow myself to be lulled into a false sense of security. I’m glad not to have been dropped in at the deep end though.
I have been looking at Weather Underground, which is nothing to do with atmospheric conditions in the city’s subterranean transportation network, but an organisation which allows people with PWSs Person Weather Stations, to compare information. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of PWSs which are registered with Wunderground on Crete, however, there are a few. Each station’s records are automatically uploaded to the site so that one can read the current conditions for that location as well as the history for as far back as the station has been recording. Usually, there is a station at a large port, a marina, an airport as well as many private ones run by individuals or institutions – the University of Crete, for example.
Looking around the island, and comparing the history, I can see that I am in the location which is generally the warmest on the island. My local station is in Kountoura, only a couple of km away so I refer to that one for comparison with my small weather device. The really cool, totally independent stations are about £3,500 but you can get one capable of uploading data to the Internet for less than £100.
The puppies are doing well and we are gradually falling into a reasonable routine. Boris doesn’t get on well with them so I take him out on his own, and take Dave and the puppies on a slightly shorter walk. Dave tolerates them but will often walk at a distance from the mob. The puppies have lots of short exercise sessions at around 2 hour intervals to stop them from getting too bored and beating each other up. I am trying to get them to wee and poo outside their crates so that I don’t have so much mess to have to clear up. I only give the boys a blanket last thing at night and cover only half the cage with it anyway in the hope that any poo goes on the removable tray which can be easily washed. All the blankets were overdue for a wash anyway so the dirtiest ones go to the puppies and the cleaned ones come inside the van. No puppies come inside the van only big dogs.
I have been chatting to Lorraine at Cretan Animal Protection who is trying to find homes for them all. She tells me that many of the Greek animals are sent to UK, Austria, Holland and even the US for rehoming. There is a van leaving UK today, coming to Greece to take back dogs to UK and other countries on the way. If you click the link above, it will take you to their site and you can see some of the animals they care for. I contacted a lady on Crete to see if she could take the puppies however she replied that as she was 71, had 11 dogs of her own, one with Leishmaniasis, as well as numerous cats and many other cats and dogs she feeds on the street, she felt she was doing all she could. Some people just have no stamina! It makes my puppy situation pale into insignificance. Lorraine is working on a plan which will enable them to be rehomed and she will also work with the camping so that other pets abandoned on the beach will also be looked after.
Talking of which, I’d better go and let them all out so as to avoid undesirable side-effects.
I hope you have a lovely day
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