Yesterday I enquired of the supplier as to the whereabouts of my new chair ordered on 9 June and should have been delivered around 15 June. This chair is coming from Germany from the same supplier as I bought the other chair last year. Last year, it took a while to get here, but at least it arrived.
Apparently the delivery company needed a reason not to deliver. The supplier asked for my mobile number which I provided. He then told me that the delivery company, DPD, were not able to use a non-Greek phone number. He then asked a load of questions about the camping so I gave the telephone number for the camping. Then DPD came back to say that it was not possible to deliver to the camping. At which point I gave the address of the supermarket together with their telephone number and asked for the telephone number of DPD in Crete so that I can contact them to arrange delivery should they decide that they don’t deliver to supermarkets too. After all, a supermarket is a pretty ephemeral thing, which might disappear at a moment’s notice. The saga continues. The problem, as ever, is that DPD, like DHL have no interest in delivering to the other side of the island, since it falls under the ‘too hard’ category. They would rather make up some excuse about the address being incomplete or similar, than take the trouble of actually delivering the customer’s package.
Adonis came this morning and he has been in the wars. He fell through an asbestos roof he was dismantling and has a couple of nasty bruises which he was not shy to show. He’d promised to do some strengthening work to Janne’s fence but had not appeared at the appointed time. Now we know why. Consequently he is now behind with everything but, as Jenna [and Erica] are away from tomorrow, until Monday, he will come back then. I showed him the shading sent by the company, which was too thin to be any good. He said he’d send it back and get some more from Polychronis. Miraculously another roll of 4m x 50m turned up this evening. The same manufacturer as the other, but this time 125gsm as opposed to 50gsm of the first one. Manos says it has passed quality control so hopefully we’ll put it up tomorrow and take down the one I borrowed from the camping.
Adonis has also taken an order for an extension to the water system which will take it into the van as well as on to the other side of the deck to another tap and hose. The second hose will allow for the other part of the compound to be sprayed without having to drag a long hose about all over the place.
Dennis, Carol and whatever his name is, came to visit briefly to say that they are off to Pitsidia for a few days. Dennis has some work down there followed by more work on the building sites in either Koundoura or Paleochora.
I am now the temporary guardian of some wooden tables and benches which have been lurking outside the storeroom for a while. During the Holiday Weekend, some of the customers purloined the aforementioned items for their own personal seating and dining comfort. Mrs P said that she didn’t want the punter dragging off the kit so Manos has put them in my enclosure out of the way. I have plenty of space, and tables and benches are useful items, so I have no objection to temporary stewardship. They technically belong to the bar area so I am uncertain as to why they are not down there. During the winter, the Albanians took them and put them in front of the small cabins so that they could eat outside when conditions permitted.
There was a dead rat under the decking this morning. I noticed that the dogs were very interested in something, and Luis kindly pointed it out to me when we got back. Manos has since nailed more poison blocks to the trees in the war agains rats: hopefully we’ll have more rodent corpses before too long.
A curious calm has descended on the compound since I incarcerated Millie in Luis’ cage. She had embarked on a program of excitement which included a lot of rushing about and barking. Of course the others were happy to join in, so general pandemonium ensued. Strangely, no sooner had Millie been removed, everything calmed down. What a surprise!
As the sun sinks slowly into the west, I’d better feed them all as well as myself.