I got up at 04:50 because I needed to: the dogs seemed full of energy so I got dressed and we were out walking across the field and on our way. Unsurprisingly, it remained darker for longer so Skinny disappeared into the darkness on Alonáki Beach but kindly reappeared when at Plakaki.
We were on the second circuit of the Promontory at 06:35 when the sound of a motorised tool of some kind rang out across the water from what appeared to be the direction of Houmas. We continued, had biscuits and were mostly across the field and back into the camping when I noticed Oskar was inside CBV and on the wrong side of the fence. Retracing my footsteps in order to get him to go out the way he came in, we encountered the American Woman we met regularly last summer when walking the river bed. Skinny was keen to make friends with her dog so I gave up trying to prevent the dogs and she let hers go. We chatted for quite a while which meant that the early start we’d made was cancelled out. She told me of her trials with the shop landlord over money during the period when the government was subsidising rents during the winter. She has to move out of her house because the landlord wishes to live there. She tells me her husband is as well as can be expected for someone who, I suspect, has emphysema as he was a world-class smoker.
I made up the Doggy Dinners before cycling into Paleochora for a ride around. Work progresses on the road and the surfaces are well compacted with lots of marks and numbers.
I didn’t much feel like swimming so let out the dogs and fed them before feeding the cats and kittens. I had an idea Maria would soon be with us so spent much of the remainder of the morning sorting out the money and the paperwork from over the winter and last weekend. Easter was Georgia’s thing as most of the visitors were Greek and known to her.
Maria arrived but was very tired having been kept awake all night by a man snoring nearby. She unloaded her car with assistance of various passers-by and then went for a snooze. I finished off the money and went back to the dogs to process the Doggy Dinners.
The afternoon was progressing so I went to the beach for a splash around in the sea which was most pleasant. There was time to sit in the sun so I dragged the chair out onto the decking, read the news and fell asleep in the sun. Also very pleasant. I awoke when it started to dip down towards the storeroom and a slight breeze got up.
Maria sent a message from reception to say she was there so I took her the keys so that we could perform our annual handover. She now has everything for the summer except for the card machine which I’ll fix up for her in due course. There is more of Maria than last season so she might have been a little inactive during the winter. She was telling me of her nephew’s progress and played me some clips of him singing.
She’s not been here since last October so has many acquaintances to catch up with. Apparently, according to Maria, Georgia was convinced Erica and Janne were coming yesterday as she misunderstood their conversation and Janne’s email. She is unsure why Georgia has bought such an expensive laptop for her to use at the reception…
The dogs were quiet when I returned to them and have been mostly quiet all day. The bar floor has been sanded and painted so Dimitris was sitting at a table on the sand when I passed on my way back from the sea.
TUI, the German tour operator, has committed to putting on larger planes to cope with the demand for holidays in Portugal which is one of the few ‘green’ European holiday destinations. The company owner states that bigger destinations such as Spain and Greece, or at least their islands, need to be included in the UK Green List as Portugal is not a big enough destination to cope with the demand from UK holidaymakers. The Aegean Islands are relatively safe and popular destinations for UK travellers.
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