I have just returned from my first meal at Houmas restaurant for 2018. Last Friday morning I stopped by the restaurant to see if it would be open that evening as Janne and Erica wanted to take me out for a meal. Nikos said that he would open on Monday. So today we went along for a meal and were about the only customers in the restaurant. Apparently, they have been busy all day and some of the menu items were scrubbed from the board as we arrived. There wasn’t a huge choice but sufficient for our group.
We were out at the normal time this morning. It was not cold or too windy. What wind there was came predominantly from the south. I ran my 5km and we returned to the camping. I went to Paleochora to find that Petrakis was open and stocking up on supplies. I didn’t have any money so couldn’t go shopping if I wanted. I turned around and went back to Grammeno as I needed to get on as it was Monday and there are often plenty of calls.
I decanted my beans from Easter Day into some containers ready for the freezer and filled up my bowl after breakfast. The plan was to reheat in the evening. I’m looking forward to these beans as they have a mixture of sweet and hot chilly.
Yesterday, Georgia had said that Manolis would come to the camping today to discuss some matters to do with the camping. She came by to tell me he’d arrived and we adjourned to the reception office for our meeting.
After the meeting, I went down to see Silvia and Ingo at the tents. As I was sitting with them chatting, I heard my dogs making a racket so I went up to discover that Georgia had come to see me again. She said that she’d been thinking and wondered if I might like to become her partner in the camping. She said that she was finding it hard to do everything on her own and that most of her money was tied up in the camping. She feels that together, by combining resources, we could make more money and get more customers. The problem is that the camping is very busy in July and August but less so during other periods. The aim is to get customers to the camping during the other periods.
I’ve tried to suggest ways to attract customers in the past, and some things have been implemented. Georgia said that she felt overwhelmed by it all and thought that between us we might get things moving. This is a bit of a breakthrough as Georgia has always made it clear that she is the boss and that is that. Offering to share her business is a bit of a revelation. With her contacts and my understanding of the requirements of northern European customers, we might have a better chance of filling the place up and making some money. This year, people are being cautious, taking their holidays in the EU, particularly Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. I suspect it will be the same next year too. Generally, tourism seems to be picking up in Greece especially Crete due to good communications with the mainland and international airports.
We decided to think about the idea then discuss it together when Maria returns from Athens on 20 April.
The afternoon seemed to disappear quite quickly as I took the dogs for their walk at 17:45 as we were going out to eat around 19:00.
Πέντε followed us to the restaurant and stayed with us for most of the meal popping ouside to run around a bit in the garden. She is now snoozing next to me. Obi has not been seen since he disappeared at the end of the walk although I suspect he came to find us Houmas restaurant. I’m going out into the camping later so will try to find him and reacquire him.
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