A gentle whimpering aroused me from my blissfuls at 04:15. Skinny had managed to wind himself around one of the guy ropes of the Southern SunBlocker so was unable to make progress without breaking it. I jumped out of bed and went to his rescue not shutting the van gate properly behind me. I was soon joined by the other dogs who’d decided that this was a good time to get up. We were all up so I felt we might as well get going, early though it was. I usually leave everything ready to go last thing before bed as it’s annoying to have to wander around half-awake trying to find stuff in the dark. We were out the gate and onto the field at 04:32. It was not long before we reached the new base and set off on the first circuit. Obi and Skinny walked them all, Charlie walked three and Fido and Luis, reluctantly, walked two. Oskar, who was in a position to choose, seems to have spent time wandering around a perhaps only completed one trip around. Kostas was there, we saw his car and his ghostly figure wandering the rocks like the headless horseman of Romney Marsh. He left, we played ball, no one else arrived, all were present and correct, so we set off back to the camping.
Xanthippos met us on his steed to tell us of his traumatic experience the previous day. Due to the wind, some misguided bee had collided with some part of his torso. He brushed it off, it stung him so he had to see the doctor for some injection or other. He wished for some news of the camping of which I said there was none. He departed as it was time for him to start work. Interestingly, not a single dog made any noise or fuss at his approach or during our conversation. They even started to pull towards him. Maybe, if Heidi had been there, things might have been different.
Leaving for my run after the walk, there were no pussies clamouring for food. This is not the first time as I suspect they were up early on a day out for some important purpose. I’ve not seen the kittens all day but the mother came back looking for food this evening.
I ran and listened to Andrew Marr’s History of the World which lasts some 23 hours or so. That should keep me busy for the next month. The sea came next and was surprisingly calm even though there was a lot of wind about.
The main excitement for the morning was to remove the battery from my MacBook to send it back to Belgium for replacement. The MacBook battery is stuck inside the laptop so it’s necessary to dismantle the laptop in order to take it out. I’d removed the original battery last summer when I installed this replacement. That was well stuck in and needed a little persuasion to get out. Fortunately, I’d kept the box in-which the replacement was delivered so I was able to send it back in this. When installing the replacement, I used only one or two pieces of double-sided tape to hold it in position as I saw no need for extreme precautions. I had thought about asking Maria if she planned to go into town but then decided to go myself.
There was more joy than usual on the road with a number of machines working together to re-profile the road near to the place where the large rock has been demolished. There were some hardy cyclists however I was not one. It cost 5.90€ to ship the battery to Belgium. I was not asked what was in the package and I wasn’t saying it was a Lithium-ion battery anyway. Many carriers refuse to transport L-ion batteries as they can be potentially dangerous: shorting out or catching fire for example. This one is well packed up so unless it suffers some catastrophic event it should be fine. My laptop now runs like a slug as it has detected the lack of a battery and shifted into low power mode by design. I’ve had to ensure the magnetic charge cable doesn’t get accidentally removed or the laptop just stops working and all is lost.
I put the two side window silver insulation mats together over the rear window of the van. Since last summer, the windscreen mat has been over the rear window as the sun shines in during the afternoon. I put up some bubble-type silver insulation in the windscreen of the van as it gets warm in the morning. Fido has been nibbling the bubble insulation and it doesn’t cover the entire windscreen anyway. I’ve now replaced the awning rail, which I’d removed from the windscreen months back, and threaded the windscreen mat through the rail so that it covers the windscreen. It is darker in the van but will be much cooler when the morning sun hits the east-facing windscreen. I will not be able to admire the sky from my bed but the reduction in temperature will be worth it. There are no windows on the north side and the south is protected by the awning.
Having re-acquired the ladder, which had been dumped over the other side of the camping, to refix the awning to the front of the van, I thought I’d take a trip around some of the CCTV cameras to give them a wash. Looking at the CCTV feeds last night the entrance, workshop and Janne and Erica’s were so dirty nothing could be seen. The wind blows dust over the lens, spiders spin webs which reflect back the light from the Infrared LEDs that provide light at nights so you see nothing if the cameras are not cleaned from time-to-time. The wonky old ladder has been returned to the storeroom. No one will expect to find it in there!
The wind has been blowing for most of the day and is still with us. Tomorrow looks reasonably calm but Saturday morning to Sunday night will be windy again. At least it’s not so hot when it’s windy.
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