Singing, clapping, dancing and music accompanied my Sunday evening meal. The natives were lively but the good news it that they or at least most of them, will depart as quickly as they arrived and peace will hopefully reign. The neighbours quietened down at a reasonable hour so one mustn’t complain. Isabella got bored around 03:00 so decided she needed to go out of the van for a wander. I let her out and, before long, she was sitting patiently on the step outside waiting to come back in.
We were not as quiet at leaving today so I needed to remind certain dogs of the need for calm. We went up the Promontory but the car park had quite a few cars so we didn’t linger. We followed the sea down to the end of Alonáki Beach and then back again to the mouth of the river. Most of the water from the previous day’s incursion by the sea has now soaked away leaving a muddy pudding. We walked up the valley this time with Oskar, Fido, Luis and Isabella off the lead. Isabella enjoys chasing after and ragging with Oskar but not as much as Charlie. Today, he was with Obi and Skinny on the lead.
We left the main river and followed a tributary which branched off to the west. There had been serious amounts of water here during the heavy rains last winter as was witnessed by the scouring and some significant landslips causing considerable loss of land, soil and vegetation. All this gets washed away out to sea never to be seen in Crete again. I suspect that the mountains are overpopulated with sheep and goats giving rise to overgrazing hence runoff and erosion lower down. The greenhouses exacerbate the problem as they concentrate yet more water to add to the torrents from above. Hardly surprising the greenhouses get washed away and homes are flooded. Some of the remedial works which accompany the road improvements might help to mitigate the problem however I suspect it’s more like treating the symptoms than the cause. As Mr Dump would confirm, there is no global climate emergency in the same way as CoVID-19 is a hoax.
The dogs seemed to enjoy their little adventure as we rejoined the main drag and headed back. There were people scattered about on the beach so I hooked up all but Isabella once we neared then end of the river. I have her on the collar and it’s a lot easier not having her on the lead with the others whilst walking the beach. She seems to be getting the hang of it all and responds quickly when I call. At one point this morning I couldn’t see her and just whistled. She came bounding back almost immediately which was gratifying. There were no smelly fish-dogs today.
I went for a ride into Petrakis having tried out the new Xanthippos showers. Funky doors with closers and a lock which actually works! There’s a little ponding which eventually drains away once the shower is turned off. It feels as though you’re in a cathedral so tall and expansive are the showers. They will be horrible in winter when the wind is from the northeast and east as there is a gap above and below the door. The new boiler ensures there is a virtually inexhaustible supply of hot water. I believe now, there are something like twenty-six showers excluding the outdoor ones on the fence and the beach showers. Main bathroom x6, T1-T2 x3, M4-6 x3, WC/Shower cubicles x 4, new showers x 10. This ignores any showers in the reception building as these are inaccessible to the punters. There are two beach showers and six outdoor showers along the east fence. All of the indoor showers have hot and cold so the user can adjust the temperature and volume. Imagine the water usage!
My Petrakis trip was mainly to buy pet food as I was almost out of doggy biscuits. I’m not using anything like as many as previously as they now have just a few in the morning and a sprinkle over their Michelin food in the evening. I’ll have enough pussy food for the best part of a while and he also chucked in a couple of other bags which have a retail value of €10. The food was delivered later by a different guy so I had to go to reception to bring him down and show him where to stack it. The other guy just delivers and the first thing I know is that the food is there the next time I go to the storeroom. The dogs don’t even bark!
The day has been reasonably busy with IT tasks and fiddling around with other little projects of my own. I’ve dug out a couple of 12V vans I had in the van to keep Dave and Boris cool when we first came with the van in 2012. I have a larger mains fan which is very efficient and quiet. Then there is the large fan which has the cooling feature which I will dig out of the storeroom and clean up before the warmer weather is upon us. I now have an abundant, virtually endless supply of electricity so I may as well use it for cooling. The need for cooling is when the sun is shining and that’s when I have more electricity than I know what to do with. I find the batteries are charged up by around 11:00 so any further power is used to run the computers, cameras, switches and WiFi for this part of the camping.
The Doggy Dinners are cooling on the table and have been decanted into the bowls. I should have just enough biscuits for this evening. My supper is potatoes, peas, peppers, cabbage and broccoli. I bought some spinach this morning so the stalks of that went in the Doggy Dinners. I’ll have the top bits tomorrow.
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