Waterloo Road dealt with the death of a pupil brought about during a joyriding incident involving other pupils. The various other sub-plots wended their ways as is the case in soaps. Then it was the turn of YouTube to see the last part of the French motorways, Google fracking to harvest geothermal energy for their data centres and a visit to Chinese deserts where they are installing GigaWats of solar and wind in an effort to clean up their energy act by moving away from dirty coal.
I had time to review the forecasts before the alarm so we were out in good time to enjoy a relatively mild but dark morning. Venus is still in bed as we’re out earlier. The pickup and caravan were replaced by the black camper van seen yesterday and another camper van was parked on the corner of the beach by ABB.
There was a slight westerly wind which was agitating the sea by the rocks but we were careful in the unlikely event of waves. I was keeping a close eye on Obi and Skinny as we walked to Azzuro. Crossing the river involved going inland where there’s barely a trickle of water. The sea was making a good job of pushing water up the river making crossing on the beach potentially difficult for those wishing to maintain dry feet. All of the dogs reported for the final biscuit distribution and it was quite light as we walked into the camping around 07:05.
Having left only Luis and Obi after feeding the cats, the six of us walked back to Azzuro with the ball. The dogs seemed less active today and were content to mooch around and chase the ball less.
I rode over Panorama to the periptero to buy cigars so Bona can dismantle them to roll up into cigarettes. The transaction was carried out almost entirely in Greek but became complicated at times. I eventually came away with three 1€ cigars, some papers and filters. There was no need to stop at Petrakis as I’ll go there tomorrow.
I dropped bread to Lucia. Joyce came past and stopped on her way to walk Merlot on the beach and then I left to feed the dogs. I had to bring in a new bag of food and torment the girls by leisurely decanting half of the sack into containers. Luis was engaged with the onerous task of pulling up more of the floor covering in the doorway.
They were eventually released with the girls being fed first for a change. They’re always the last in the evenings as they get to consume whatever is left in the bowl.
I cleared some of the wreckage, made tea and sat in the sun which was very pleasant. It was only then I saw a message from the Dutch couple they wanted to use the washing machine so I put on their wash later on and took it to them once complete.
There was a summer enquiry from a chap called George. I directed him to the contact form on the camping website as I felt this might result in the least frustration for him. The next call was from the ACS delivery guy bringing the gloop for my bike inner tubes. Unfortunately, one of the containers was damaged in transit so most of the product had escaped. I cleared up the mess and sent the supplier a message.
At one point, it became very warm so I even had to relocate my chair out of direct sunlight. I watched an enlightening video on surge protection and very good reasons to avoid transients getting into your home electrical system.
Transients have been around since lightening first struck the planet and surge protection has also been around for decades. However, in the days of yore, there was very little sensitive electrical equipment in the average home. Now, with the advent of LED lights, sophisticated heating control systems, computers, sound systems, tablets, giant TV screens and so on there is a plethora of electrical devices just dying to have their electronics totally fried by a direct or indirect lightening strike.
In the case of a direct strike, the loss of a few gadgets could pale into insignificance compared to the damage to the property itself. An indirect strike can be a long way from your property or just by voltages induced from clouds passing overhead. In sort, without suitable SPD (Surge Protection Devices) in your consumer unit, all of your kit could be taken out in one go!
This has happened a couple of times at the camping during nearby storms. It usually takes out the network switches as these are at the ends of long, aerial cables. In sort, I’m fitting an SPD between my solar panels and the inverter as an induced voltage or nearby strike could take out nearly every device plugged into to the electrics. Somewhat more than the 60€ for the SPD.
All of the animals were going crazy as it was past five when I fed them. With the lengthening days, I’m slowly moving them back to eating later. Eventually, it gets so noisy, it’s very difficult to ignore them.
This evening’s meal will consist of the remaining small tomatoes donated by Bona’s employer with some different beans and the beetroot I’d almost forgotten I’d cooked yesterday.
