Fortunately, the power outage and the UPS woke me so I was able to bring in the things which were getting wet. There was no sign of Skinny who’d taken himself off under the decking which he seemed to prefer to the decking itself. Presumably to join Obi who spends quite a bit of time there too. The rain appeared as forecast contributing 3.4mm precipitation which was more than forecast. I have never experienced rain in July here before. It was good to smell the fresh herbs, have compacted sand and clearer air. The rain started at 03:00, the same time as the power outage, and was over by the time I woke at 04:30. We went for our Early Walk as usual and continued with the reduced first walk programme as it seems to be working both for Skinny and SBD. Since providing this additional walk, Skinny is out-for-the-count once we come back from running. Today we went towards Kountoura again.
The sea was rougher due to the northeasterly wind so I was able to have fun in the waves again. The power was back on by the time I came back to the van at around 08:35. I made my breakfast and then got on with my day.
I’d expected to be working on Kirsten’s new laptop but heard nothing from her so assumed she was busy with other work. I spent time working on my own Windows PC to get over the startup problem which has been preventing me from getting on with Annette’s VM. I spent a little time emailing a Chinese company looking for more components for my solar project. They initially told me they could ship to Crete but only to Iraklion. I said that would be fine except they’d need to get the items transported to the camping as it would take me eight hours to travel to Iraklion and back. I also asked if they would ship the items Delivery Duty Paid (DDP) as that way all the shipping, duty and VAT is pre-paid so there are no holdups with customs and no surprises with extra charges. The guy said they could ship to Souda but they couldn’t do DDP. Then he told me that Iraklion was the only shipping point to the island. I thanked him for his time and said I’d find a supplier who could ship DDP to my door. I await a response but will not hold my breath as, in the grand scheme of things, my order is less than $2,000 which is peanuts to a company of their size.
I needed to walk up to the office to see if my replacement laptop battery had arrived. I checked last on Monday and understand the battery arrived yesterday. Nice of someone to let me know or drop it to me! A single email would have sufficed! Without the battery, the laptop runs much more slowly to compensate for the lower available power without the battery. The charger alone is insufficient for full-power operation. The slowness has been getting me down for days. I am not very patient when kept waiting for Web pages to load or my laptop to do things. I use it every day for a large chunk of each day so expect it to work as expected.
There was some clattering in the storeroom earlier and I notice that even more of the horrid blue pallet chairs have disappeared: where I don’t care! The uppermost pallet chair was occupied by the cats and I have yet to find their blankets and relocate them. Once all the pallet chairs go I shall be overcome with joy and will be able to make some sense of the space at the entrance to the storeroom. Admittedly, it was me and Dennis who stacked the chairs there however I wasn’t expecting them to still be there three years later. More sensibly, we would have stacked them further into the storeroom. With better use made of the storeroom, there could be a whole load more stuff stored there. I will not make more space or tidy up before winter else otherwise all the newly-created space will be immediately filled up with other useless trash.
Following a damp and grey start, the day has dried up nicely with a high of 30.2℃. It has been warm and sunny for most of the time so the signs of rain have all but disappeared. I’ve rearranged all the decking furniture back to its normal position and even taken the valise with the tent sides and put them into the storeroom! I knew that if I swept and washed the van and decking floor, it was bound to rain!
The wind has got up so there should be fewer people to clutter the beaches later. It would be good to be able to take the dogs to the end of the Promontory again seeing as it’s not so hot. They are more relaxed when it’s cooler with a longer evening walk.
There were a few people wandering the Promontory however the dogs were on the lead so there was just a little barking from Oskar when a man appeared wearing a very bright yellow top. It was blustery but enjoyable watching the waves in the distance as they crashed into rocks. We returned to the camping via the field as there are now a couple of dogs in the upper part of the camping which are more easily avoided.
I met a guy earlier who has been coming to the camping for several years. As usual, it was he who remembered me!
It’s nice to have my laptop back in action once again…
Leave a Reply