The Care and Attention of Bio-Toilets

About midweek we worked out what was up with the batteries.  I remembered from the toilet paperwork that it was supposed to be kept in temperatures of at least 18◦C.  With the sudden cold snap, the heating element in the loo had been trying to heat the whole shed through the night – no wonder the batteries were squealing. 

So every night we put a fire in the stove in the shed, to keep the toilet warm, and went shivering to bed in the camper van!

Chick Watching

Thursday 14 April 2011

During this week, whenever we finished work with a bit of sunshine still in the field we would get a couple of shandies and a few olives and sit by the chicken coop and see what they were up to.  Thelma was definitely top hen, and she and Bob were the quickest to get any slugs or clover (favourite treats) that we fed them.  Louise was more shy, but better at scrabbling – she would find things in the earth that the other two would chase her for – she’d dart from corner to corner to try to keep it to herself, but they would sooner or later, be too fast for her.  Poor Louise.

It came on to rain on Friday, and soaked the chicken food, so we gave them our umbrella.  This also kept their dust bath dry, so they were very pleased.

The chicken watching station:

Chock Watching

Wednesday 13 April 2011

After work on Wednesday we took advantage of our neighbours in the Winnebago having kids visiting from the UK.  Michael’s nephew Jack had come as token adult and chief child-herder.  While having beers we’d discovered he was a tree surgeon, and Michael had a borrowed chainsaw to hand.  As a result we got on with a job that had been waiting a long while to be done – chocking the camper truck up.  Finally we would no longer have a sickly wobble whenever one or the other of us went in or out.

Dave and Michael assessed the situation

Jack started cutting to size

The chocks ready to be fitted

Dave and Michael supervising

Jack also cut the remaining logs into short lengths for the stove, and Michael’s son wheelbarrowed them over to a log pile.

 Dave wedging the chocks in tight.

Just relax ...

Tuesday 12 April 2011

After lunch Tuesday all the work in the run up to Bobstock together with the deadlines looming in the boatyard collapsed like a house of cards, and we agreed we weren’t going to work that afternoon.  Instead we set off to explore the footpaths leading out of Goat Bottom. 

 Lefkada's answer to Ankor Wat

 A tongue Orchid. These were everywhere

The view from the top of the valley  

Electrickle Trouble

Sunday  10 April 2011

Sunday morning we woke up early to an excited squealing from the inverter in the shed.  It gets alarmed by low power in the battery bank, and we had run down overnight.  It’s interesting to investigate the power you use almost without realising it.   We were running the fridge; lights the evening before; the internet was on, powering little lights on the wifi unit; the telephone we’d brought from the apartment was a handsfree, and needed power, a mobile transformer was left plugged in and taking power even without the phone attached.  Ever since we’d turned on the power system the shed had been humming and buzzing like a scene from Young Frankenstein.

So we turned everything off.  Luckily the day was sunny, and powered the batteries back up.  The evening turned cold, though, and we went to bed early.  This was good, as it turned out, as at 9.30 sharp the power died completely.  With a torch, Dave checked the batteries and found them too low again.  We turned off the inverter to prevent squeals and fell asleep.

We turned it on again in the morning and those lovely batteries attempted to charge up through another bright but cold day, but by the time we were back from the yard they were still too low to get us through the evening.  We’d turned off everything non-essential and they were still draining faster than they could recharge.  A mystery!

We’d brought the battery charger from the yard, with the intention of running the generator for a while to boost them, but the charger turned out to be too low powered for the job.  We rang Dieter, and went into Lefkas town to buy a heavy duty charger.  Another 500 euros invested. 

We turned everything off again, and went to bed by torchlight.  In the morning, Dave couldn’t wait to wire up the new charger, so he set to work in the battery box while I did some interior stuff in the camper.  We wanted some textiles on the walls to cover up the mock-wood veneer.  We’d recently watched some stuff on Mongolia and fancied a yurt look – which just meant hanging anything we could find by any means possible.