At around ten forty-five I wanted to go to sleep so sent a message to Bona to that effect. I suggested they might have Maya back the next day. I went to bed but, despite all of the earlier activity, Sasha and Maya still had plenty of energy so I banished them to the SDC where they could do little harm. Having three elephants charging around can be tiring as well as destructive.
Maya has become more lively since her last visit a few weeks back so needed to be told that we don’t bark at the cats at 03:00, nor 04:00 for that matter. The alarm dragged me out of bed, I put the collars on the dogs and we set off. Today, my thicker T-shirt was tucked in. We made good progress to the rocks but it was quite dark so I needed my torch most of the way. The moon is at the end of its cycle again and Venus seems to be loafing in bed half the day.
We were at Plakaki before long and then back at the Promontory to go over the rocks once more. There were no signs of life but still some vans and a tent along the beach road. I was out again with the three girls but today we went to Plakaki again as we’d already met a rather surprised woman with her two dogs. She did well considering she was surrounded by ten dogs at one point. Not that they hung around after the initial interest had worn off.
We went onto the rocks at Plakaki where they discovered the yummy remains of a goat. Suitably nourished, we continued back and Isabella swam out for her ball a few times. The last time, I started walking away as she was swimming back so she abandoned the ball. I could see the ball being blown further out so suggested she might go back out to recover it. I pointed to it and she went back into the water, locked on target, and swam back with it. If I’d tried to get Boris to do that… Isabella is quite geared-up when it comes to the ball both on land and in the sea.
We met the Serbian lady with her Setter as she’d come up Alonaki to join us. She’d spotted us from a distance and came despite the fact there was an extra dog. We didn’t talk for long but she tells me she’ll bring her baby to see me once it’s functioning more or less independently. She and her partner are leaving Grammeno today.
I went to the office to give Maria 200€ because I couldn’t be bothered to go to the ATM for her, hung around whilst she went to the loo and the bar, then set off for a ride up the mountain. I was a little late leaving as a result of waiting for Maria and persuading her laptop to talk to the Internet. I only stopped at the bakery in Paleochora and then Megim Hotel in Grammeno to pick up yet more papers for Maria to fill it. It will be good once the new toner and chip arrive. I dropped off the papers and went back to the dogs to release them. As far as I know, the three girls were well behaved during my absence,
Much of my day has been taken up uninstalling Microsoft Office 2019 from Louise’s computer. This is the business of the administrative install which I discovered can be removed if you log back in on the same account used for the installation and use the script I discovered by trawling Google. Louise now has a fresh installation of Office 365 which her partner bought five licenses of.
Other than that, quite restful. Tomorrow I have the Japanese husband of the lady I was going to see about her DVD player when I was blown off my bike several weeks back. His laptop is dying or dead and he also has an ancient iPad. He will come to the office tomorrow before midday.
Noisy came dead-on 14:00 to collect Maya even though he, and some of his little fiends had already taken her for a long walk on the beach and into the sea. Maya is fond of water. She is now back home but Bona and the boys are back at the camping so that she can complete her evening tasks. Afterwards, they usually adjourn to the bar for a drink whilst Tony entertains the boys. They go home after my bedtime but then I’m a lightweight.
I’m already considering the approaching winter and ways of making things more comfortable in the evenings and days when it’s cooler and downright cold. Having struggled with cold feet whilst up in the evenings, despite thick socks kindly donated by Ursula, I’m planning to not bother heating the van but only the person. When I have electricity, it’s fine to heat with it but several overcast/wet/cold days and I need to conserve my battery reserves for the fridge, lights, computers and so on. I have a heated pad which was bought when my knee was hurting having been twisted whilst getting on my bike when loaded. Carelessness on my part but annoying and painful. Quite often, I’d go to bed with cold feet and then had a hot water bottle. This is quite good but quite dangerous as it requires filling and eventually starts to leak as I discovered. I’m contemplating an electric blanket and also an electrically heated gilet for when I’m out and about or sitting outside or inside when it’s cold. These have a battery pack for autonomous use but can be plugged into a power supply when mains power is available. On a battery, they last around 4 hours which is significantly less power than running a fan heater or oil radiator. The good thing is that they keep the core warm which generally keeps everything else warm too. The dogs don’t really like it when I have heaters on as they find it too warm so sit and pant. We end up with them too hot and me cold. Running a heated gilet and a heated pad will use significantly less electricity than the fan heater and won’t overheat the dogs. They generate quite a bit of heat between them and they take up less room when it’s cooler as they curl up into a ball rather than stretch out. I can then use gas to heat only on very cold days or when all else fails.
I went down to the kitchen at around 17:30 and was waiting outside for a lull in the proceedings when Georgia appeared to see why the service was taking so long. I wasn’t very interested in what she was saying as she was having a rant at the kitchen staff but she shoved two bowls into my hands, one with mountain greens, the other with fresh Gigantes. I know they are fresh as I finished off the container yesterday and still have some in the fridge as there was too much to eat. Gigantes and greens is a wonderful combination so I sloped off to munch it before it got cold. I put one plate down so I could open the compound gate to return just before the cats arrived to eat my food!
It’s now 20:15 and starting to get dark so it goes to show that the days are shortening and that summer is gradually transitioning into autumn. The evenings and nights are cooler than a few weeks ago when it was unremittingly hot both day and night. Now I sometimes have to get under a sheet at night and can remove the fan heater which was at the bottom of my bed for a while!
Leave a Reply