Having said that I’d be happy for any customers to accompany me on my evening dog walk, I now have a new assistant. He’s very willing and able but only six and speaks Italian or German. I asked his father if he’d like to come with us hoping that perhaps the father would take half of the dogs for me. He asked the boy if he wanted him to come but he replied he’d prefer to be alone. So then I had eleven dogs plus a small boy to look after. Not quite the result I was hoping for but he did his best. He found Minnie a little daunting when she tried to put her paws on his shoulders and to lick his face. I calmed him down and the rest of the walk went well. We were met by his father on the last leg so I managed to hand-off Dave to him whilst I dealt with the others. I decided that Pea might be the best dog for the boy to lead as he couldn’t really go wrong with him. They were let off the lead at the end of the promontory but kept on for most of the remainder as there are people about and the dogs can be a little lively. His mother brought him back this morning and left him petting Obi whilst I got on with other jobs.
New dog walking assistant
This morning we were out well before 06:00 and the Bulgarian guy who has been to England was collecting salt. He was rather overwhelmed by barking dogs but I finally rescued him from Princess who delighted in nipping his heels. She and I need to have a conversation.
Maria has arrived at the camping so I don’t have any reception duties to attend to anymore. Lots has been going on with preparations for the opening of the recently-modernised bar. New shutters and floor. The floor is quite interesting as all the boards join at the same location rather than be staggered and it would definitely not be a lot of use for carpet bowls as Mr Goldsack used to say when we were doing house surveys. Still, it adds character. Despite the new floor and shutters, I think the bar still has a wonky roof so rain will come in flooding everything if there is a sudden downpour like in August 2015 when 42mm rain fell in a couple of hours: the camping looked more like a refugee camp.
I’ve spent a lot of the day learning to make funky and cunning websites in preparation for the new Matthew Shepherds’ Hut website. Website design has come a long way so it’s possible to make something quite advanced without having to design it from the bottom up. You may find that Matthew has added a lot of images to his shared album.
You may recall that I ordered three stopwatches from China a few weeks ago. I wanted something I could take out with me which wouldn’t matter if it got lost or fell in the sea and didn’t cost much. I ordered three as I needed a display which I was able to read without my glasses. The first watch, with a nice, big display, arrived a week or so ago and I have been taking it out on the morning walks. I kept coming back a little late so wanted to know the time without having to take my phone with me. The other two watches arrived yesterday, sent by the same organisation but allegedly from different vendors. As it turns out, all the time modules, the watch bits, are identical, only the surrounding case is different. I was very pleased with the first watch for £1.79 including postage, so I now have three so will probably not lose or break any of them.
Today has been a little cooler but the top temperature made it to almost 25C and the forecast insists that it will be warmer over the weekend but talks of rain on Thursday. I doubt that will pan out as it’s nearly a week away. There is usually some rain in May but none so far. When I say ‘some’ I mean very little because it’s usually forgotten about by the next day.
I will speak to you tomorrow.