Spring 2013 – California

Great Britain seems cold and windy after 8 weeks of Californian sunshine! Our first stop was San Jose to visit Jo and her children. Our time with them included baseball practice and a match for the boys. The match is not a short event but lasts a couple of hours. The boys are both becoming accomplished batsmen but fielding seems less enjoyable. Amazingly, Sienna is happy to spend the whole time on the apparatus in the park and has developed incredible upper body strength for a 4 year old.

After a week we left for Palm Springs with Jo and the children following a few days later to stay with us for the school spring break holiday. As usual, the children spent most of the time in the pool especially Sienna who, within a day of arriving, had mastered diving for toys at the 9ft depth. There were trips to the cinema, local park, Bug Mountain and McDonalds to brighten up the day!!! Of course, we missed the children once they had left but there were still many of our ‘snowbird’ friends at Ocotillo Lodge and so we had a lovely time with many planned or impromptu gatherings on the sunshine deck or in people’s yards for drinks or supper or even homemade ice-cream. Sitting on the sun deck after dusk, the pool looks absolutely magical.

Annie and I also paid a couple of visits to Idyllwild for lunch at Gastronome. It may be a 130 mile round trip but it is worth it for the food and the scenery as we rise from about sea level to 5500 feet. On other days we visited Old Town Temecula and Dana Point.

We spent a couple of days with Jo during the middle of our trip and then returned for a few days at the end. The latter visit had been long planned but whilst we were in America it was agreed that Jo would fly home for Lucy’s Hen Do but as a complete surprise for Lucy. The surprise was total and Jo had a lovely couple of days. Meanwhile, back in San Jose we had been expecting to look after the children whilst Jo was away but Jo’s husband (who left the marital home last Christmas time) decided that he wanted to look after the children for the whole time. Initially disappointed, we used the time to visit the Napa Valley and Monterey and had a great few days visiting places we had not been for several years.

Our journey home went well despite worries as our departure from San Jose was late thus reducing the connection time in Dallas. Anyway we and our luggage made the flight to London and our spring trip to California came to an end.