260 Days In - Santa Catalina, Day 2

Morning is introduced abruptly with the water pump battering the space under our bed, like a very large and angry woodpecker. Outside calm envelops. Boats tilt to and fro in the morning sun as it glows through receding fog.

It seems that there has been a leak in the water tank, and low water levels mean no hot showers - just a quick wash. Captain Dad-of-Chris says that if we could listen out for where the leak might be coming from, that would be very helpful.

After breakfast we head out up the coast, hoping that the fog will disappear in front of us. Though it does not quite oblige our wishes, we come out the other side to a view of jagged cliffs and wide open sea.

Mr Wrigley (of Wrigley’s chewing gum) bought a controlling interest in the Santa Catalina Island Company, would you believe. And thanks to him, many say, construction on the island is heavily restricted. So unlike the Southern California coast, who’s natural beauty is hidden behind housing and under golf-courses, a few dwellings scatter from Avalon up into the hills, and there nature takes over.

Day two is a day of seals. While we do get the desired company of a few playful dolphins, it is the groups of seals, lazing in the water with tail and flippers pointing towards the sky, that are the main cause of entertainment. From a distance they look like a shipwreck. We are eyed cautiously as we speed by, often causing shy heads to sink under the water.

Our second night is spent by the other settlement on the island (more of a village than a town), in Catalina Harbour (near the red circle on the map). The inlet almost joins, nearly creating two islands. But not quite. The harbour, therefore, is so cut off from the sea that it is totally calm.

The few other boats belong to people who work on-land, and the place has a quiet, un-touristy feel.

On land we poke round the one shop, look in on the one restaurant and read plaques outside of an American Civil War barracks (in surprisingly good shape). But the highlight has to be the lone male Buffalo that quietly eats grass beside the road, and acts positively shy when Chris pulls out his camera and readies his stalking posture.

In the 1920’s a film crew shipped out a herd of buffalo for a silent western that they shot on the island. Apparently there was not the budget to ship them back where they came from. The herd still live there, doing so well the population has to be controlled.

For Christmas, Chris' dad was given a boat Bar-B-Q. It has special attachments that connect to the boat, and is “just the right size”. As he gets out the box, and thoughts of fresh grilled burgers spread a smile across Chris’ face, there is a call of “did we bring any matches?”

Evidently there are no matches onboard, and every other ingenious idea of creating fire is thwarted. Luckily Chris’ mom packed a lasagne, for just this scenario; we celebrate with wine and a few games of poker. As we head to bed, I remark that the lights have gone awfully dim.

Chris’ dad, always the first to rise, is confronted with a floor of melted ice-cream in the way of boiling the kettle for his morning tea.

Of course the low lights were an indication of less battery power; power that continued to lessen through the night, and result in a defrosted freezer.

Chris and I avoid the clear up, striking out for a very steep hike up a small hillock. And to buy emergency water.

The journey home from our shake-down cruise is calm, fogless and void of wildlife. Peaceful, though somewhat uneventful.

254 Days In - Santa Catalina, Day 1

Chris’ dad likes boats.

When he was a young businessman he had a sailboat for the wild seas off California. When he was father he had a smaller sailboat for the calm lakes of inshore Great Britain. When he could see retirement he had a comfortable Dutch barge for the slow canals of hilly England. And now he has treated himself to a rather plushy (new-to-him) yacht.

He is once again back on the shark infested waters of the Pacific, but this time with a sat-nav and ice maker.

Since their purchase, Chris’ parents have been keen to take us on a trip down memory lane, 26 miles across the sea to Santa Catalina Island; a place that they sailed to many times before moving to grey old England. And, in-fact, the place that they were married.

This is also to be the boat’s shakedown cruise. A term that I appreciated more fully, post trip.

So last week we pack up enough stuff for about three weeks, and toddle off to the marina. There is something very special about being on water, and even more so about being on water where you can only see the haze of land in the distance.

I have only seen one dolphin up close once before: half way around the world in New Zealand’s fjordland.

Last week, I saw more dolphins than I can remember, as they hurried towards our boat to ride the pressure wave in front of us. We even heard them squeal at each other - as if in delight. We watched mesmerised as they played, weaving over and under each other.


After a while they would disappear down into the inky-turquoise sea to join their pod, and we would wait for another group to join us.

Amidst the wonder, disaster strikes. We hit heavy, thick fog.

Chris dad goes to turn on the radar. It doesn’t work. I ask what they did when they hit fog when in the sailboat.

They just kept going, and it was always ok.

So we kept going.

Luckily the sat-nav stopped us missing the island and ending up in Japan.

Once safely moored in Avalon, Catalina’s only town (and one of two “settlements“), we disembark for land. Chris helps his dad pump up the dingy and attach the out-board motor. In the end, we are rowed to shore.

Avalon is a sweet little town, reminiscent of a Devon fishing village; with too many hotels, and shops that sell things you “like” but will regret having purchased, once you are home. Chris takes lots of photos.

As it is January the streets are almost empty, and the bars very quiet; but we find a lovely Mexican restaurant that will serve me my desired fish and chips and Chris the most enormous margarita I have ever seen.

Soaked with wine and food we row back to our little “home” and are lulled to sleep by the banging of buoys against boats.



If you followed the hyperlink, I hope you enjoyed the song!

240 Days In - A New Year

My mother asks me (via Skype), “is New Year’s Eve as much of a big deal in California as it is here?”

Internally I laugh; poor, sweet, ageing mum.

Externally I say “New Year is a big deal everywhere, isn’t it?” My sister, who is silently reading behind my mother, concurs. Clearly neither of us have spent New Year’s Eve in Balboa.

Balboa, as I understand it, is the swanky part of Newport. Newport, as those who have watched The OC know, is the swanky part of Orange County. And Orange County, it is commonly agreed, is the swanky commuter-ville outside of LA.

Balboa has a peninsula complete with beach with surf-able waves, and peer with diner at the end of it; it also has an exclusive island, where stupidly rich people buy ridiculously large holiday houses on the water so they can park their ludicrously oversized yachts next to them.

The high street on (as some trendy locals call it) Bal Isle has quaint boutique shops and lovely restaurants; the peninsula has trendy but well decked out eateries and bars.

Chris and I have agreed to see in the new year with friends who are also legal immigrants. They live in a spacious flat with a view of Balboa. A few weeks before the big night, we discuss the possibility of booking a fire pit on the beach, but the hoards of people seen out on Halloween and July the 4th lead us to conclude that we have left it too late.

So, not wanting to pay to get into a bar, or to spend the whole night squeezed into a corner, having to shout over raucous noise, we start the jollities in their flat and decide to wander into Balboa at about 11 to soak up the atmosphere.

Come 10.30, wine soaked and fully fed, we dress up in scarves and gloves, as if in England, and head off with plastic cups and a bottle of Don Perignon.

The walk to the island is eerily quiet and once over the bridge there is a distinct lack of people and noise. In one “Irish pub” we see a live band calmly serenading a completely seated audience. Confused we head for the ferry that will take us over to the peninsula and the promise of life. But unlike the 31st October there is no queue of cars waiting for the three-car boat.

On the way across a lone party-boat chugs past us; music is playing loudly, but on closer inspection there seem to be about ten people onboard. A lady standing next to us says “it is really dead, it seems to get quieter every year. I think it is because of the drink driving laws”.

And, as we had begun to fear, the peninsula is just as dead as the island. But we keep on, stubbornly believing that the beach will surprise us with numerous parties around numerous fires.

It does not.

There is one party around one fire, and the drunken teenagers seem an omen that pushes us towards an nearby pub that is, miraculously, open. The people on the street outside create a false impression that the place is full, but at least it means we get a table.

Chris goes all out and, donning a party hat, orders a double sized bottle of Corona and the world’s most disgusting chicken wings.

On the way home we pass the Irish pub, now dark and empty. It is 12.30.

Back in the flat, we pop the champagne and settle in for a drunken game of Snapdragon.

232 Days In - Decorations and Traditions

We definitely live in an area of the United States that likes decoration.

Of course I have previously mentioned Halloween, which is neatly followed by Thanksgiving (when carved pumpkins are swapped for solid ones and spiders replaced by small scarecrows) and then Christmas.

Even before the Thanksgiving turkey is finished, out come the sparkley lights and giant baubels.
I know this because they are on the outside of houses.

This tradition is picking up in England, but it has a special place here; flyers begin to appear sometime in October advertising professional light-putter-uppers, which reportedly cost you anywhere form $400 to $20,000.

Plus, no-longer content with simple strings, the lights now come in the shapes of reindeer, or the baby Jesus, or a Polar Bear wearing a scarf.

On a lonely drive home, well before Christmas, I am distracted by bright lights that I have not seen before (and this is a part of the Freeway I know very well). A large circular church has its Christmas lights on: in addition to those lining the building, a life-size nativity-crib is made from fairy lights, and every tree in the graveyard is coated in them - from root to top-tip.

As if buildings lining the roads are not enough, the cars themselves are also decorated - wreaths, red bows or reindeer nose and antlers.

Eager for a tasteful, reusable wreath for their front gate, Chris’ parents went to Stats - a festival slanted “everything you will need” kind of shop. At this point Chris was still on his start-of-MFA-residency and with no car I was slowly going mad, so I go along for a laugh and a bit of cultural learning.

You can get everything you will need: pre-dressed trees with oversized bows, or a statue of Father Christmas with a surfboard, or fake silver branches to hang from your ceiling, or life-size Crib figurines, or a miniature Dickens village…

On entry you are slapped in the face with all manner of garish Christmas tat fighting each other for attention in the crowded space. It is a big shop.

Chris’ Mom spends some time picking out the correct wreath, holding them up against each other and trying to block out the lurid surroundings. This I have to commend her for, as the wreath looks very good separated from its birthplace. Looking around at our fellow shoppers, it is clear that no-one else possess’ this rare seventh sense.

One lady pushes a trolley full of various glittery branches. Full.

Back at home Chris’ Mom comes across the “icicles” that hang on the tree; these are the long individual pieces of tinsel material that, here, they dangle from the ends of the Christmas-tree branches. Feeling validated now that she is back on home turf, she merrily scatters them about her tree. This causes some disapproval from the patriarch of the family.

Not at all British.

Actually there are many British Christmas traditions that I did not realise were specific to us, until I merrily tried to make them happen here.

Crackers, for example. I mean, what is Christmas without silly paper hats, useless plastic toys and awful jokes?

Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies are the other main casualties.

Though I am not that partial to eating mince pies, I am very partial to making them, and this was one tradition that I was not going to give up. But if Americans don’t make a certain food, why would you assume that the ingredients for it will be found in the shops? It isn’t. Not readily anyway, and it took more than a few trips to hunt down a semblance of what I needed.

In-fact, with the help of the world-wide-web, Costco and a quaint little British shop that sells lots of tea-pots, we gathered together all of our missing treats.

But I know that I am here for the experience of living in a new land, so this year we added two new traditions to our list: a Christmas walk along the beach and The Elvis Christmas Album.

219 Days In - Winter, Is That You?

It rained for a few days. Pretty heavily and constantly.

With a wry smile at the reminder of home, I sit inside the house, not daring to go out.

Chris’ dad puts on his raincoat and ventures into the unknown. Grinning.

But, because Southern California is usually so hot the heating system is not up to British standards: hot air is blown noisily into the only room with a thermostat. Everywhere else in the house, the paper walls are at the mercy of the cold outside.

So the thought of getting soaked through just makes me shiver.

This is not my usual state. As I have mentioned, I love the cold - and the best bit about it is knowing that you have a blazing fire and toasty house to return to.

On the first day that the rain came and the winds picked up, we did have a fire. Chris’ dad had been waiting for just such an opportunity, and the garage has been filled with awaiting logs since August. But the chimney was build by southern Californians, and the wind whipped down it, gusting puffs of smoke at us like a message from the natives.

That was our last fire.

Chris has started his Masters course. He goes in for ten intensive days, and then writes lots of Booker-prize-winning pieces at home, emailing his adviser over the months before his next ten intensive days.

He is about half way through his first set of ten days, and has been lucky enough to catch some of the rain on his commute to “school”.

If Californian roads are dangerous when the climate is predictable, they are downright scary when the rain comes. A bit like English roads in the snow. But worse.

The drivers split into two categories. Those who do not understand that stopping takes longer when the road is wet, and like to sit on the bumper of your car at the same speed they would usually go. And those who are scared and so drive really really slowly. If this second group is lucky enough to drive up behind someone else who is scared, again, stopping distance gaps are not altered.

Unsurprisingly then, the local newspaper recorded that on one of the said rainy days that, here in Orange County, there were 484 collisions registered - compared with 127 the previous week.

On the bright side, the drought has been eased for a while.

It is now sunny again, and if you sit on the patio at midday it feels like summer; the view is of blue skies and green trees. The only indications of December are wind chills and longer evenings
Recently I realised that I had been scrimped on autumn this year. No golden leaves to run about in, and no bare trees to sway eerily against the sky.

I just isn’t right.

So while the neighbours complain that wet and cold must cancel their plans with Chris’ parents, I am hoping for the storms to visit again.

212 Days In - Vistis and Visitations

Chris’s parents have been on a whirlwind of visiting and entertaining - well, comparatively speaking.

In November his dad flew to England to sort some business. While there does a whistle stop tour of relatives, from Bristol to Liverpool.

Upon return, barely recovered from jet lag, and he packed up the car and drove off with Chris’ mom to where she grew up. They visit old school friends, cousins and even double-cousins, ate a lot of hospitable food, and return exhausted two days earlier than planned.

There was disappointment over the way that things had changed: that the roads had stretched and spread, that gardens had not been tended, and that chain-link fences had been put up around fondly remembered childhood homes.

I have tried to visit neighbourhoods or houses close to the heart of distant rose-tinted childhood memories. Generally the bright glare of reality brings nothing but melancholy.

There is then a flurry of preparation for the arrival of Chris’ uncle and aunt in time for Thanksgiving.

Whilst busily preparing a 20lb turkey, three different types of potato and two pumpkin pies, Chris’ mom lamented that I would not be able to experience a proper American Thanksgiving where there is lots of food.

Maybe next year.

It was lovely to have family here, and there was a feeling of holiday in the air; everything shut down for the Thursday, and most companies were closed on Friday also.

In true Thanksgiving tradition (I am told) we watch American football whilst nibbling on nuts and sipping lager. Chris asks many complicated questions about this overly-complicated game, doing his best to find his roots and be a proper American.

I bite my tongue, avoiding a loud eruption of “Rugby is clearly a much better game - rah rah rah”.

Seriously though, if you need scantily clad dancing girls and a person in an oversized costume to keep you entertained, how good can the game be?

Then, this week, I had my own little “visit”.

Albeit for just half an hour in the departure building of Los Angeles airport, it definitely made my day.

One of my best friends from University was flying through on her way back from Hawaii, and we managed to meet for a hug and quick natter in the general melee of her flight change.

I have to admit that I am feeling a little friend-deprived at the moment, and seeing someone close to me was a real tonic.

But I try not to think about what I am missing - just what there is to look forward to when the time for family and friends’ visits arrives.

199 days In - The Police and Me

An American Cop is an intimidating figure.

Through T.V. dramas, grapevine stories and reality cop shows, an image has been built of men (I don’t mean to be sexist, this is just how my imagination works) who have all the power and not necessarily much morality.

In a country where, they say, it is not that difficult to get a gun, and where, they say, there is much gang related crime, it would not be surprising to find cops who look on you with suspicion before giving you the benefit-of-the-doubt.

I have, in six months, had four encounters with the US police-force. Each increasingly dangerous…

Honestly though, it’s not what it sounds like.

The first was early on. Driving lost through down-town LA, hoping and praying that some mad-man won’t jump out of the shadows with a sawn-off-shot-gun, disorientated we turn left from the wrong lane and cut off a police car.

Well, I say “we”, but Chris was driving.

At the next junction, we are blinded by one of his special “blind the criminals” lights, and he calls across to us:

“You can’t just pull across me like that, buddy.”

“Oh….I am terribly sorry.”

Stammers Chris in his best “I went to a posh British school” voice. The “we are just stupid tourists” excuse is always the best.

Our second encounter was much more personal, though still disappointingly polite.

Speeding on our way to a day of mundane background work, we are caught - yes - speeding.

Again, I say “we”, but Chris was driving.

Blue lights flash behind us. It is very exciting, this time it is a motorcycle cop.

He walks purposefully to my window, which I obediently roll down, and complete with moustache, sunglasses and leather gloves he introduces himself and asks the driver why he might be driving so fast.

My over-excitement at the whole experience is somewhat dampened when the extortionate ticket arrives.

At encounter number three, I had no husband to protect me (or to blame).

Work took me out to a little hotel in the middle of nowhere, and at 8am there is a knock on the door. My room-mate answers it and immediately we are asked:

“So what’s going on?”

So nice to meet you too, officer.

Thinking it is some kind of joke, my room-mate laughs along, but when we are requested to hand over I.D. she staunchly refuses and begins a rampage about how, if the police did their jobs, California would not be in debt.

A slightly confusing argument.

It turns out that there had been an anonymous call saying that something distressing was happening in our room - though he did get the room number wrong when he mentioned it, sooo…

After taking me aside to ask sincerely “are you sure you are alright ma’am?” he has to admit defeat and leave.

I begin to eye everyone else at the hotel suspiciously, and am very happy when it comes time to leave for work.

And so, two nights ago came the fourth, and definitely most scary, encounter.

At 3am we wake, with a start, so the screech of tyres and a thunderous bang. A car alarm goes off for about 20 seconds. Then silence.

My heart literally pounds from the shock, while my mind runs wild. As I have mentioned, we live in a guard gated cul-de-sac with speed bums every 50 yards; how could anyone even travel fast enough to create such impact?

In my head a pick-up-truck has crashed into a house. Chris agrees that this is what it sounded like.

Lying awake I hear a few scuffles in the dark - figments of my startled imagination, I tell myself.

Then there is torchlight, voices, and the unmistakable sound of our back-gate. Followed by a knock on our door and Chris’ mom’s rushed voice:

“There are policemen in the back yard.”

It takes up approximately two seconds to dress, and we head for the front door to investigate, but the call of “don’t go out, the police had their guns drawn” halts us firmly in our tracks.

The image of policemen running around just outside the windows, guns in hand, chasing down a criminal, who was clearly trying to escape them, has an odd effect.

Will the mad-man run through our land? Might the police, on the other side of the house, see him, shoot through the windows and catch us in the cross-fire? Conversations of whether the patio lights should be on or off, ensue.

A knock on the door brings the news of how the attempted escapee did run through the back yard, and that now having been caught, he would be going to jail. Not a drug-dealer or gang-killer, it transpires he was a drunk 21 year old who panicked when stopped for a broken headlight.

We watch the blue lights slowly disappear, and head back to bed.

Chris’ dad, who slept through the sound of the crash, puts the kettle on, and stays up to have a cup of tea.