I was in bed before 22:00 and asleep soon after. It’s a little early really but just felt like bedtime. I had to get up again as Luis wanted to bark. Unfortunately for him, the bark collar was at the foot of my bed so he was quickly silenced until the alarm at 04:55.
The morning was reasonably cool with a light wind from time to time. I didn’t see the three cars in the beach car park until we were coming back by which time I’d spotted the dome tent pitched near to the Big Rock on the Big Beach side. We sauntered past on our way to Plakaki.
Another surprise was a man clad in only a towel who was sleeping on the pebbles inside the shade/windbreak half way up the beach. I didn’t spot him until I was almost standing next to him and Skinny and Isabella arrived soon after. There was some surprised interest but we all carried on silently by as one should at 05:45.
We took a more central route on the return run passing between the shelter and the two tents pitched near the road. There was also a vividly decorated van nearby.
During the second Promontory circuit there were no surprises, we stood at the top and admired the sea but I was interested in getting back as I wanted a swim before riding my bike.
I swam then made up some dough before leaving in an easterly direction on my bike. Today, I rode up via Panorama to the pass and then carried on down towards Voutas although not going that far. There was now quite a strong northerly wind so going up was fairly demanding as was coming down the other side. Coming back was a doddle as it’s an easier climb and with the wind behind, even easier.
I went through Paleochora passing the puppies who looked very relaxed lying in the sand in the sun. A couple looked up but I didn’t want to stop anyway. I decided to have a second swim off Alonaki as the first of the day was quite short. I was walking down the beach not looking in front of me when a stick caught in my shoe and I measured my length in the shingle scratching my glasses more annoyingly. Shortly after, there was a gust of wind and my bike fell over so I turned back to stand it up in another direction.
The sea was quite invigorating and some of the inmates from the vans and tents were amusing themselves and their children in the sea. This was another brief swim so I was back at the camping by 09:30 to release and feed the dogs.
I made tea and sat down as I needed a rest. The dough was the next job as it needed decanting into the bread tin. Other activities for the day included work on the Lock laptop, renewing my driving licence and ignoring another email from HMG offering to give me more money.
I summoned up the energy to brush some more of the dogs as well as to muck out the van as it was ankle-deep in dog hair and sand. This involved changing the bag in the vacuum and mopping the floor.
I didn’t quite have enough enthusiasm to have another go at Charlie but spent some time with Oskar, Luis, Skinny and of course Fido who can never get enough of being groomed.
A message from Maria asked if I could visit the kitchen as the sous vide stick didn’t appear to be reaching temperature. In my view, it’s always worthwhile staying in favour with the kitchen, cleaners and the accounts department. I reset the sous vide stick and it appeared to be functioning as expected.
The dough has turned into bread with some assistance from the oven and is now cooling down and generally curing itself. I will probably have enough bread for this evening but have DDs to do tomorrow so will not really want to be doing bread as well.
It has been quite hot at times but promises to cool down this evening. It’s quite hard work when it’s hot during the night as well as the day.
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