Fairford – 8 June
We arrived safely back in Fairford yesterday evening having had a great time in California for the last 7 weeks. We had a very smooth journey home flying from San Jose to Los Angeles and then on to London. On the way back from the airport we made a detour to see our new granddaughter Elsie. She is absolutely gorgeous and Annie and Gerry both enjoyed cuddling her!!! Jenny and Elsie are both doing well and Callum and Bethany are very proud of their new sister. Bethany certainly seems to want to help Jenny look after her. We did not have the camera handy and so have no new snaps to share but I am sure that we will remedy that within the next couple of weeks.
As reported in an earlier Blog we spent the first week of our trip with Jo,Todd and the children. During our time in San Jose we had watched a couple of T ball games (baseball for youngsters) and also witnessed Alexander losing his first tooth. We also went for a hike with Jo, Sienna and Oliver (Alexander was at school). Another trip was to a small local park which has a small roller coaster which the children really enjoyed.
You may like to use the link at the end of the blog to see some of the photographs of the time in San Jose and the rest of our time in California.
Palm Springs was as good as ever although the weather was 10F below normal and we did not have any days over 100F after the first two weeks. Nevertheless, it was very warm and pleasant. Apart from the Pool, we were able to spend time with friends for drinks, meals etc. Chris and Mia (our landlords) also invited us to their home for a BBQ and we were able to take them a house warming gift of a lemon tree. We had intended to give them something similar last November but they had not quite moved in by the time we left. We also visited Idyllwild a couple more times to have lunch with friends at a restaurant called Gastronome which has become a firm favourite with us. Although the round trip is just over 100 miles, the scenery, lack of traffic, the mountain air (Idyllwild is just under 6000 ft above sea level) and the food make the journey worthwhile.
An unexpected treat for us whilst in Palm Springs was that Alexander, Oliver and Sienna came to stay with us for six days. Jo drove them down from San Jose and stayed a couple of nights before heading off to Catalina Island to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Todd flew down on Saturday and Jo rejoined us on Sunday. The family then spent the rest of Memorial Weekend with us before driving back on Monday evening. The children loved the swimming pool and spent from 9 am until 5 pm in the water except when eating lunch!!!
We then had a few days on our own before heading up to San Jose to spend our final weekend with Family P. At least the weather in San Jose got us acclimatised for our return to the UK!!!
