Cretan Diary - Chapter 23 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Saturday - PaleohoraOctober 10, 2009 The day began bright and early (doesn't it always?) with Jenny cleaning the outside of the house. There's always lots of dust blowing around. We decided to walk to the shop to buy our weekend's provisions, then drive to Paleohora to visit our friends at the Zygos café. I drove us to Paleohora on the south coast. It took about 2 hours. We parked at the Zygos Internet Café, saw our friends, the owners, and had a meal there. Then we walked through the town, looking at the changes that had occurred since May. We continued to walk around the coast then stopped at a Taverna, near the camping site, and had a glass of cold water. A cricket flew in. They have powerful hind legs that can lift them two metres before they open their wings and fly. Picture is approximately the actual size. Jenny drove us home. I felt queasy but I don't think I can blame her driving for it. The road between Paleohora and the National Highway has mostly been rebuilt using EEC funding. However, there are still some rough sections awaiting improvement. Here's one of the many new sections of road. Although not strictly legal, it is generally accepted that you drive on the "hard shoulder" to let other vehicles pass. I went to bed early because I had stomach ache. Felt better this morning so we (Jenny) drove to Eleni's house (after she'd done her nails and hung the washing out). I dropped off my portable Hard Drive so Eleni could copy some files onto her laptop while we continued to Georgioupolis for breakfast at "Sinatra's" bar, where Les makes a fairly realistic "English Breakfast". We chatted to him for an hour then collected a newspaper for Eleni and drove back to her house. On to Vamos for petrol. The filling station run by the old man was kleesto and I was darned if I was paying 115 Euros per litre across the road, so we returned without. Still a quarter of a tank left so no problem. We really went only to change a 50 Euro note anyway. Back home I set to work fitting the new bulkhead lamp above the kitchen door, connecting it to the existing terminal strip dangling on wires coming out of the wall. I applied "self-amalgamating" tape to the connection, to keep out water and insects. The ladder was awkward to position. I had to rest it at an angle on the top step... ...secured only by a plastic "cable-tie" to the fence. Next, I went onto the roof to sort out the TV aerial. It was worse than I thought. The connections were very corroded and the coaxial cable was poor quality. In addition, I noticed that it was pointing out to sea while neighbours' aerials pointed up the hill. I connected it to our new TV but it received only 8 channels - two of which were Turkish - and all were unwatchable with severe interference. So into the garden it went! I mounted my log-periodic 40-element aerial in its place - pointing in roughly the direction of the neighbours' aerials. I set the TV to re-scan and it found 12 channels, mostly watchable. Then I connected my new masthead amplifier and scanned again; the TV found 14 channels! It's almost dark outside now and we have to start tidying to make room for everyone who has promised to come "avrio". | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
