Monday 4 - Thursday 7 April 2011
Lilias had been on the phone all last week, trying to find out for us when the internet might get connected. We'd been unplugged since Saturday 26th, which was putting a strain on our work and personal communications. I'd made one foray into the world of internet cafes: I started out in George's, after work, thinking I'd check emails and do some blogging, but my firewall for some reason refused to connect, I went on to Biblos, with the same effect, then to De'Vine, again with no result. In each location I'd ordered a beer when I sat down. I stayed an hour in George's, struggling with it, twenty minutes in Biblos, and five mins in De'Vine, leaving more and more of the beer each time. I eventually found a connection in Cafe de Paris and did some urgent work emails and got some blogging done, but CdP is essentially an open air venue and my hands soon got too chilled to type.
So the good news from Lilias on Friday last was that she had heard that the work of putting in the columns would begin 'early next week'. In Greece, that could mean anything, so imagine my surprise on Monday morning, nipping back to GB for something we needed in the yard, to see all this sophisticated machinery at work on our columns:
Lilias had been on the phone all last week, trying to find out for us when the internet might get connected. We'd been unplugged since Saturday 26th, which was putting a strain on our work and personal communications. I'd made one foray into the world of internet cafes: I started out in George's, after work, thinking I'd check emails and do some blogging, but my firewall for some reason refused to connect, I went on to Biblos, with the same effect, then to De'Vine, again with no result. In each location I'd ordered a beer when I sat down. I stayed an hour in George's, struggling with it, twenty minutes in Biblos, and five mins in De'Vine, leaving more and more of the beer each time. I eventually found a connection in Cafe de Paris and did some urgent work emails and got some blogging done, but CdP is essentially an open air venue and my hands soon got too chilled to type.
So the good news from Lilias on Friday last was that she had heard that the work of putting in the columns would begin 'early next week'. In Greece, that could mean anything, so imagine my surprise on Monday morning, nipping back to GB for something we needed in the yard, to see all this sophisticated machinery at work on our columns:
On Tuesday there were no developments and life went on in the yard, with proper union tea breaks occurring with startling frequency:
Tuesday the 5th was, of course, Upside Down George's birthday, so we went to celebrate with him - lashings of free food - and Rob, Dave and Viljan playing guitars
By Wednesday the phone line had reached us, via enough columns to hold a full frieze of Elgin Marbles ...
... including a connection all the way to the shed. It appeared while we weren't there. Lucky, really, that they got the right shed! The junction box had ten wires sticking out, eight of them tied in a bundle, leaving a red and a blue like little antenna.
I nipped into town to the electrical shop, and asked for a telephone socket. This was produced, then I asked for the cable. 'Two core?' he asked. 'Um, I have ten core', I said. 'Only use two', he said. 'Do you have some cable?' I repeated. 'Yes, use this four core', he replied, bending two of the core wires out of the way, to demonstrate. 'What about this socket?' I said, 'it is designed for four wires'. 'Just use those two', he said, pointing them out.
After this crash course in telephone wiring I got home, we tried it, and hallelujah! it worked.
On Thursday we were up bright and early, to haul Tropi into the yard, having been warned by the Skorpios pontoon that they were launching on Friday
The boatyard boys pressure washed her as she came out of the water - the result, I think, of a new policy that lasted only that day - for once we struck really lucky.
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