Once all the diners had left the taverna after lunch, we were left completely by ourselves. Obviously the owners did not live on the premises. As I was ambling about outside Basil at dusk I looked over to an adjacent house and thought what a nice sculpture of an owl they had on their roof. Then I went to get my binoculars and saw that it was an actual Little Owl, sitting there bold as brass.

I scurried into Basil and grabbed my camera, putting on my birding lens, before pointing it at the now empty roof! They should employ my birding lens at airports as a guaranteed method of scaring birds. A little later I was sitting in Basil and glanced at the house and there it was again. It was by now nearly dark and I grabbed my camera again, but once again the owl had disappeared. This time I waited patiently in the gathering gloom and finally it returned and I managed to take a photo in almost total darkness. Not one of my best, but very good for almost complete darkness.

This morning we had decided to catch an 11am ferry from the nearby village of Agiokampos to the Greek mainland at Glyfa. We did not know the pack drill and so decided to get there early. Arriving at 9.30 am we waited in a queue for a few moments while Sarah bought our €24 tickets and then we were being loaded.

Reversing on board now holds no fear for Basil and I, but I was mightily impressed with the reversing skills of the two lorries towing huge trailers.

We assumed this was the 11am sailing and prepared for a long wait. I went up on deck and Sarah stayed with the dogs in Basil and did some crocheting. Much to my surprise the boat left dock at 10am and after crossing the flattest sea you could imagine approached Glyfa 20 minutes later. I went back down on the car deck and into Basil. Sarah greeted me with the words “when are we leaving”. “Leaving” I said “we’re there”! So smooth was the sea and so soft the engines that Sarah didn’t even realise we had left the dock! We still don’t know why, when there wasn’t one listed on the website, there was a 10 am sailing.

A two hour drive awaited us on which we passed two large archeological sites – Greece is just full of antiquities and drove through the large port of Volos, which advertised itself as the port of Jason and the Argonauts, always one of my favourite films.

We arrived at Camping Hellas (39.309681, 23.107638 €20 on ACSI) at lunchtime, to be shown to a seafront location. The owner said they were so quiet we could take two spaces. No sooner had she spoken and we had pitched up, than there was a deluge of arrivals. We were asked to move to make room for one new arrival and then to cap it all the owners have directed a caravan to pitch with their front end half way across our pitch. Providing Mabel doesn’t take against our too near neighbours we will be all right, if not we will have to move again and probably off the site.

I think this is the first time on the trip we have stayed at the same place as in 2017 and the reason we did so was that we enjoyed Camping Hellas so much two years ago. The shuffling round and cramped conditions have marred that memory a little, but lets hope we can overcome these initial set backs and have a relaxing few days.