POS

I awoke to a forgotten sound, that of raindrops falling on the metal roof above the van. Initially, the rain easily persuaded me to stay in bed even though it wasn’t very hard. When it became lighter, then stopped altogether I had no cause to dawdle.

It was coming up to six when we crossed into the field which greeted us with a new experience of moisture and freshly watered plants. The smells from the wild herbs were very refreshing. As expected, there were no vehicles near to or people upon The Promontory: a goodly number are still parked along the beach road including one tent. It was getting light as we headed back although the distant lightning flashes were still easily visible from behind the mountains. The weather forecast had been reasonably accurate and the storms passed us harmlessly by.

The girls and I together with a redundant thrower, set off once I’d settled the boys in the van. It was still quite cool even though the sun as appearing above the mountains. Like the first walk, we made good progress due to the comparatively cooler air so were back just before eight.

I put the charged batteries on my bike and set off via the washing machine to Paleochora. There was a delay as I restarted the boiler a couple of times before leaving.

As I rode the few drops which started as I left the camping gate, degenerated into more than a few drops but with some positive thinking it started to slow down. I’d been concentrating on the sunshine in an attempt to ignore the rain.

After a very long spell with no rain and plenty of sun, the road at the junction to Panorama had turned into an skid pan with the addition of light rain. I was a little ambitions when turning so the tyres lost grip leaving me sprawled on the ground in a tangled heap of man and bicycle. I was moving very slowly so the tarmac was kind to me just scraping off some elbow skin from my left arm. The biggest concern was the black, oily, greasy mess up my left arm and leg. Another cyclist approached as I picked myself up from my unceremonious tumble and got back on to ride up the hill to the top of the mountain.

I soon forgot about the various scrapes and bruises as I examined the distant clouds building over Grammeno. I considered whether I should cut short my trip and go back. Things looked a little better as I came back down so I decided to go on as normal. There was more dampness but it soon stopped and I was surprised to see it starting to clear over Grammeno in the distance. I had a stop at the periptero on behalf of Bona. I pointed out to the guy that I don’t actually smoke as he must think I have a terrible, and varied habit. With the amount of visits and variety of weed especially.

I stopped next at Petrakis for some bits and some detergent to try to get the road grime out of my clothes. I decided to wash everything as I now had enough to make up a reasonable load. Eleanor, at the checkout, kindly offered my some wet wipes which I declined as I was so grimy.

Back at the camping, the clouds had all but cleared leaving a mostly blue sky. I got my washing together and stuffed it into the machine. There was a call from Maria about the POS machines which ended by taking large chunks of the remainder of the day amongst other things. We called the helpdesks on several occasions but to no avail. It was the same story of restarting the router and the POS blah, blah. Eventually, after lots of fussing, we were told there was a problem at a large routing centre in Athens due to flooding. The upshot, no POS payments and customers being forced to pay by bank transfer or trekking to the ATM in Paleochora. Maria managed not to get too stressed despite everything. Both bank machines are still not working.

Meanwhile, the service technicians were working hard on the boiler which now smells vile as new components heat up and burn off residue. ACS arrived with a packet for Frank and a loo and some coconut stuff for me. The loo is still in its Sasha-nibbled box but a block of the coconut fibre is in a bucket expanding with 1.5l of hot water. The loo will be ready for lift-off sometime tomorrow.

So that I wouldn’t get bored, there was a number of calls and a support call from Simon. Hence the loo still in the box.

All is now reasonably quiet other than a frustrated baby in the distance and an even more distant barking dog. I’m going to have a little more to eat and then fall into bed which I have yet to construct. It’s easy at this time of year as there’s just one sheet!