Earning a day at Disney

Believe it or not, P has never been to Disneyland. She must be the only five year old in Southern California who hasn't. As it happens, I haven't either. People look surprised when I tell them that - it's like saying you've never been to London, as a Brit (same cultural significance) - but given that I moved here in my thirties, it really isn't so strange. Before that my closest Disney option was Eurodisney, and there are about a million better things to do on a trip to France than go to Eurodisney.

And so it is that we are a pair of Disney virgins. I could go to my grave without ever visiting, but P would be a deprived child if we let this situation go on much longer. Up until recently she's been content playing on broken slot machines at Redondo Pier, but we think it's time she saw what a real amusement park was all about.

She's of an age now where kids chat - at least, I assume that's how come she knows about Shimmer & Shine, because it certainly didn't come from our house - and I'd hate her to miss out on something all her buddies get to enjoy. Wait till her schoolmates find out we only have one TV. They'll think she's a complete freak. It's not only caving to peer pressure. I also know she will absolutely love the experience.

So we told P that once she was five she'd be old enough to go to Disneyland. And hope none of her friends told her they've had a SoCal Family pass since they were toddlers. She turned five in February. So what's taken so long?

Well, once we decided we should take her, we decided we should make the most of it. Hence, the sticker chart. The road to Disney, for P at least, was paved with good deeds. For every good deed, she earned a sticker, and once she has a sticker in every spot, we will take her to Disney. As you can see by the state of it, P has got properly invested in the chart, adding her own titles and pictures. She spends a lot of time counting the stickers and the empty spots.

 In case you're curious - ooh, you'd get a sticker for that - she gets stickers for being helpful, kind, brave, curious and adventurous. Aka tidying up after herself, eating vegetables, and generally being compliant. It's really not that hard.

We've enjoyed two months of extra helpfulness, and an incentive for her to do things that are challenging. She's only a few stickers away from the big reward now. I'm pretty sure she'll love it easily enough for us to add some extra empty spots into the next sticker chart. 

Leaving the bubble

We spent Thanksgiving in Georgia, with a wing of TLOML's family. It was a long overdue trip and we had a really good time reconnecting, eating well and yes, feeling thankful.

I was prepared for some culture shocks. I had let P know that it would be a bit colder than LA. I also knew we'd be in the land of subdivisions. For my Brits, a subdivision is a housing development. They're strung out along highways between areas of undeveloped land (actual nature - trees and hills and so on) and are the polar opposite to the urban density we and P are used to. I knew we were leaving the liberal left leaning 'resist' mindset of California for #MAGA land. But a little difference of opinion never hurt anyone, so that didn't worry me any. I also knew - and welcomed - the fact that we'd be trading kale salads and Jamba Juice for Dairy Queen and Waffle Houses. That's good stuff.

But I really never thought I'd see a see saw. Nor one of those dangerous roundabouts the sight of which still makes me wince - the kind you can fly off, or be dragged around half-on-half-off, or be screaming 'stop I want to get off!" while some bigger kid sees how fast they can spin it.

I thought they were banned across America, the land of the brave, free and litigious. You certainly never see such perilous equipment in California. Here, the seesaws and roundabouts have curved seats - kind of like arm chairs -  which hug children of all abilities safely, as their friends indulge in some co-operative play and propel them smoothly and conscientiously.

P would have been on this thing all day if we'd let her

Scream if you want to get off/ go faster!

But no, it's only us softy coastal elites who've banned those deathtraps. This excellent playground in Cumming, GA had both a proper seesaw and a proper roundabout - and was all the better for it. Georgia - making playgrounds great again. Is #MPGA a thing?

Faux vintage

About a month ago TLOML, P and I headed up to the Central Coast for the weekend. We had 'won' a wine tasting and lunch at Tablas Creek, in Paso Robles at a charity auction (I'm not sure buying a fancy lunch is truly a prize, hence the quote marks). We decided to make a weekend out of it, as I am British and feel that driving for more than three hours is unacceptable for one night away.

I've wanted to visit Ojai since I first saw an article about it in Sunset magazine. There's nothing like Sunset magazine for making you want to visit some artisan enclave. So I bamboozled TLOML into thinking it's on the way to Paso Robles (as he discovered, it's really not).

Ojai is just as beautiful as I had expected. And that pink mountain sunset is just gorgeous. It's a town full of hippies, I think, based on the artisanal honey tasting rooms, the fact that chain stores are banned, and the protesters with 'ban the bomb' placards. I'm not kidding - and they were being honked supportively by most of the Subarus that drove by.

Friday night in Ojai

Formerly known as Nordhoff, Ojai rebranded itself during WWI, as anti-German feeling grew. Around the same time, following a fire, the town was rebuilt along Spanish Colonial Revival lines. Colonial Revival architecture itself was a bit of a pastiche: a 20th century attempt to recreate a style of building in use in the Spanish Missions of over 100 years earlier.

All the buildings in downtown Ojai have to fit that mould, and chain stores (except banks and petrol stations) are prohibited. Banning the big chains and maintaining a strictly uniform building code makes for a very charming main street. Between dinner, ice cream and morning coffee we patronized three different, interesting, locally owned businesses.

But stretching that Colonial Revival style still further to accommodate, for example, 21st century gas stations and supermarkets, starts to feel more than a little bit phoney. I wrote about this last year when we visited Santa Barbara, another triumph of 'historical' preservation over diversity and innovation.

Ye olde Chevron garage

 Although when it looks this pretty, who really cares?

Speaking of phoney, on our way back from Paso Robles we stopped at Solvang. It's another town I'd been curious about, having heard it described as a Danish town. How Danish can it be, nestled in the Santa Ynez valley, I wondered?

Quite Danish, it turns out. It is apparently a great place to buy clogs - and the pastries there were the best I've ever had in the US.

But it's a peculiar slice of Danish culture. Solvang was built in 1911 by a group of Danish settlers. Eager to maintain their traditions they built in the sixteenth century style - which is rather an odd thing to do in the twentieth century. Half-timbered buildings abound, as if steel, plate glass and concrete had never been invented.

As a Brit I find it all rather unsettling. spending time in these fake old places. In London you can stick any tatty old shop on the front of what might once have been a rather attractive Georgian (Victorian? Whatever... rest assured it's older than Solvang) terrace.

We had a lovely weekend in those charming spots, but it was something of a relief to return to scruffy, determinedly non-uniform Hermosa.

Santa Barbara, where even the no smoking signs are Mission-era

A couple of weekends ago TLOML, Lady P and I drove up to Santa Barbara for a weekend at a friend's place. Besides the obvious pleasures of a mini break, eating and drinking and catching up with friends, and exploring new playgrounds, I especially loved Santa Barbara itself.

After life in Hermosa (founded 1907), it was really lovely to be somewhere with more than a hundred years of history. Santa Barbara was established as a Spanish mission in the 1780s, and much of it was built in a grand colonial style after an earthquake in the 1820s destroyed the adobe huts they'd been living in before then. Which is to say, it is an old city, by Californian standards at least. And it's architecturally coherent, in a way that Hermosa, with its Portuguese castles next to modernist white boxes, is just not. Much of the city's roofs are red tiled in the Spanish style, and there are some really well preserved buildings.

Take the courthouse, and this fire station, for a couple of examples. Both still functioning with their original purpose, and in their original form.

The courthouse

An actual working fire station

Then there's this charming multistory carpark, beautifully preserved from the colonial era with the original signs and all.

Wait... what? The dudes who ran the Mission had the foresight to build parking structures? No, you're right, it's just a modern car park that has been designed to meet Santa Barbara's code for downtown construction, and blend in.

Much like these signs, which I'm guessing weren't there when the courthouse was built in 1850.

Hey, I'm not hating this faux-old stuff. Santa Barbara is such a beautiful city, and much of its appeal lies in the visual unity of its architecture. It's entirely fitting that the powers that be would want to preserve that appeal. I felt rather shame-faced about how little regard I paid to the 16th century buildings of my college.

Still, it was refreshing to get back to messy, chaotic, apparently unplanned Hermosa with all its quirks.

Californian closets

It turns out bedrooms are not required by state law to have a built-in closet. Which surprises me because realtors will say stuff like 'It's really four bedrooms but they've listed it as three because this one doesn't have a closet'. As if a closet is as essential as a door and a window.

Requiring a closet might not be the law but it is pretty common practice. All the houses we've lived in or snooped around have built-ins in every room. And most master bedrooms have walk-ins. To the extent that I now think that closets like this are normal.

I'm not showing off when I saw I know people with closets like this. I've been in closets like this. I think this is how clothes ought to live (now I'm a Californian).

Sadly our new house, despite its ample storage, does not feature a walk in closet. I know. It's pretty unbelievable. Instead our clothes are stored in a series of closets in and around the bathroom. I've learned to live with it by calling it a dressingroom-cum-bathroom but the more aspirational real estate I see, the harder this cross is to bear.

Our closet-cum-bathroom. I know.

I daydream about ripping the whole dressing-room-cum-bathroom out and replacing it with a walk-in and a wet room. But I also daydream about a pergola, new dining chairs and a new bannister. Meanwhile TLOML not only dreams of (but actually sorts out) termite-free fencing, and new window cranks.

So for now I've had to go for a cheaper facelift. It's hard to describe just how happy I felt on achieving this transformation.

BEFORE: The horror of mis-matched hangers

AFTER: Aaaah

I guess I don't need a fancy walk in closet when $30 worth of hangers makes me feel so good.

Can the customer experience ever be too good?

Customer service in the US is famously better than it is in the UK. So much so that it takes a bit of getting used to. Shop assistants barely even pause texting to look up when you enter most high street shops, and British waiters are experts in studiously avoiding eye contact. Meanwhile over here they accost you with offers of help from the moment you walk in, which can be alarmingly. Even after you've shopped they throw out a ‘Need help to your car, ma’am?’.

So far, so clichéd. I always thought the British were underserved by the cliché though. The family who ran my old corner shop were always very friendly, for what it's worth. And the customer service in John Lewis is usually brilliant.

Still, I don’t think there is anything in the UK to match the experience TLOML and I just had at a shop called Pirch, which claims to purvey joy. No, really.

Thanks to an unreliable oven and a juicy insurance cheque, we are in the market for a new range. Our house came fitted with a 48” Thermador, from which it is rather difficult to retreat. I mean, we’re not going to take it out and replace it with something smaller, for starters. What would we put in the gap, after all? It turns out there’s no such thing as a budget 48” range, and if there were, it would probably affect our home’s value. Frankly if your real estate listing doesn’t call out a Thermador, Wolf or Viking range you might just as well spraypaint ‘tear down’ on the front of the house.

Therefore we are in the market for a fancy range. And therefore we went to a fancy shop. We went to a mall in Orange County that looks like this:

Jjust as an aside, heres how the Farmers like to purvey their goods down in the OC (puts the trestle tables of Saltburn's farmers' market to shame somewhat):

I think the farmers were out on the golf course they day we visited

Anyway, back to Pirch and the reason for our visit. As you walk through the fancy schmancy doors, you are greeted with an offer of coffee – freshly ground and made to order. Then an actual chef talked us through how he would could what with which range, and did a little steam oven demo. They offered us a test drive: a trial run cooking on the ovens in the store (with foods their chef had prepped – no need for us to chop or peel, obvs). I'm not sure I could cope with cooking in a kitchen this pristine, so I declined.

They had a chicken on a rotisserie which I think if we’d wanted we could have helped ourselves to.

That's TLOML's nose. I cropped out the drool.

All the appliances are wired and plumbed in. In fact I think you can even use the loo or take a shower if you want.

It was actually rather overwhelming. TLOML didn’t even want to look at the wine fridges, which is how I knew it was all a bit much for him. We shuffled out feeling drained and somehow not entirely full of joy. We really do need a new range, and it does need to be a posh one - but I’m not sure we really needed the Pirch experience. Does anyone?

High class problems

Beach life isn't easy all of the time, you know. As we settle in, we have become aware of a couple of major drawbacks of our bright and sunny new home.

First of all, our living room is so bright that we're worried the sunlight will fade our sofas and our lovingly refinished floors. At about 10am we drop the shades on the south-facing french doors, and from noon we draw the curtains on the west-facing windows. So for most of the day our living space is shaded and faintly funereal.

The grown-up living room on a glorious sunny day

The family room: suns out; shades down

You almost wouldn't know the sky outside is bright bright blue

The other bummer is that our lovely royal palm trees are, it turns out, touching the power lines. At least, when the sea breeze catches them. Which it does most of time, creating a lovely rustling sound and the potential to set the trees and presumably our timber framed house alight.

Ah, the wind in the palm trees...

...and the imminent risk of fire

We were advised to take the trees out, but we love them far too much. Instead I guess we'll have them trimmed back, which might make them look a bit bald and/or lopsided till they outgrow the power lines (or Hermosa Beach finally puts them underground).

Doesn't your heart just break for us?

Rainy Season

Rainy season has been a bit rubbish this year. Not enough water for the farmers, and not nearly enough for Lady P either.

Umbrellas and rainboots are such a common feature in her books and so rare in every day life she finds them absolutely fascinating. She was given an umbrella for her birthday and we had to switch the sprinkler on so she could use it (I know, not very water sensitive of us - but it was only for a few minutes, I promise). She loved it.

Happily a couple of days later we had some rain. Lady P was delighted by the pitter patter on her brolly and puddles to splash in too.

Do children who live in rainier places (ahem, England) get the same thrill out of a puddle? Maybe so. But would they be as delighted by our constant sunshine? I don't think so.

My nieces, about to visit from Cumbria, will enjoy the weather I'm sure. But I don't think it'll have anything like the impact the reverse trip – a few days of rain, or snow, in the Lake District – would have on Lady P. Now my nieces are older than Lady P, so it's not a fair comparison, but still I think for any child the fun of the seasons is all about kicking fallen leaves, snow angels, and splashing in puddles. Even if you're British and you get a decent amount of puddle splashing and leaf kicking.

Sunshine, by contrast, is something grown ups take pleasure in. No faffing around with hats and scarves, the ease of leaving toys outside almost all year round, the ability to plan a picnic or playdate in the park without ever checking the weather. I don't know any children who care about any of those practical considerations. And I don't really know any children who complain when it's not sunny. Those nieces would be happy to run around on the beach in all weathers.

So there you go. Beautiful sunny weather - like so many other things (quiet time, personal space), wasted on the young. 

Idyllwild, in pictures

I may have been a bit quick to say we won't go back to Idyllwild. In fact, apart from the absence of snow, it is a very lovely place.

Proper scenery, trees, mountains, etc

 There is a town monument involving a strange configuration of eagle, bear and mountain lion. And a very helpful sign.

Looking for the Idyllwild town monument?

Look no further. 

It's a town for outdoorsy types. The gun loving, horse riding, cowboy hat wearing kind.

Actual guns for sale just in a regular outdoorsy shop. Weird.

Niche market, no?

The quintessential rugged Western look, reinterpreted for today's hot blonde.

 Their town Christmas tree is the best I've ever seen. It is a real live tree, possibly even taller than the Norwegian Spruce in Trafalgar Square.

 And there's shopping for more than just guns, obscure cookbooks and dodgy denim. Unlikely though it may seem, we bought something at the Idyll-Beast Research Center Museum and Gift Shoppe.

All in all, it's a town with something for everyone. I think it's fair to say this won't be our last visit. We'll just leave the woolly hats at home next time.

In search of winter

It's about this time of year I get nostalgic for proper winter weather. I hanker for woolly socks, roaring fires, hearty soups and pink cheeks. I am also a little concerned that Lady P will think it's normal to conduct winteryactivities wearing sunscreen and shorts.

So I planned a family jaunt to Idyllwild, a haven for artsy and/ or horsey types, high up in the SanJacinto mountains east of LA. I found us a cute little A-frame cabin in some woods, by a creek, and was expecting snow: all the ingredients of a truly wintry getaway. Given that we were at 6000ft above sea level, this was not an unrealistic expectation. In other years there has been snow up there as early as October.

However, in 2014, snow has yet to fall. In fact, the weather was disappointingly balmy. Basically the kind of temperatures that wouldn't be out of place on a May day in Yorkshire.

I'm proud to say we did not let that deter us. We still wore our woolly jumpers and winter boots – we just left our coats and hats indoors. And we still lit a fire.

Something is missing from this picture... The ground should really be white

You almost wouldn't know it was 15c outside

Fortunately we weren't there just for the weather. I also wanted a weekend without obligations and errands, and some time for us to switch off (albeit from our pretty stress-free life). So we kept the sightseeing light, content with a drive up to a nice viewpoint where Lady P clambered on and off the same rock about a dozen times.

Rock climbing in winter woolies

We ate hearty mountain food, and played cards and drank whisky, and poked about downtown Idyllwild. And we didn't watch TV or go to Target. It was almost perfect. But next year I'm thinking we'll go to Aspen instead.

Voting like a Californian

It's official! I'm a Californian now. Not only do I have a Californian Drivers' License, I get to vote here too. I was pretty excited when this pack arrived, outlining my options at the elections in a couple of weeks.

I opened it eagerly, ready to scour the pages for a Green Party candidate. I soon realized there really are only two parties in this great nation.

Ah well, that makes the voting somewhat simpler I suppose (although I promise to do due diligence and read all the candidate statements before voting along party lines).

Speaking of due diligence, and making thoughtful voting decisions, how about these State Measures?

These propositions appear on election ballot papers as part of a long and not-very-glorious history of direct democracy in the golden state. Previous propositions put to the vote have included provision  of school funding, the legalization of gay marriage, and of course, the establishment of non-partisan blanket primaries in place of closed primaries.

Wait, what? That sounds complicated. And this year we get to vote on whether to extend parks funding, build a new school in Hermosa, and require doctors to undergo drugs testing. I'm just not sure I'm qualified. Is anyone?

After all, don't we vote for politicians so they can do the deep thinking and careful analysis on these issues, and have all the sleepless nights along with it? I was sold on the benefits of the California lifestyle, but now I know the responsibility that comes along with it, I'm not quite so keen.

Outdoor Pursuits

TLOML, Lady P and I took a run out to the North Yorkshire Moors at the weekend. It is lambing season so the moor road is lined with cute signs like this one:

 And the fields are full of lambs baaing and shaking their little tails and generally making us both think of roast dinners.

It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we headed to a little village known for its long stretch of daffodil-lined river bank. You pay for your parking in an honesty box and follow the guidance given to take a very pretty walk along flagstone and wooded path.

NCP this aint

Lady P studies the route

Some daffodils

Hordes of people were doing the same thing, some just ambling like TLOML and I, with Lady P in her chariot - others looking a little more serious, with hiking boots on and walking sticks. On our drive we also saw tonnes of mountain bikers, plenty more hikers, and lots of campers too.

It struck me that in some ways this part of England is not so different to Norther California. Both are blessed with wonderful people and a beautiful coastline. You might think that's where the similarity ends. But they are also places where a large chunk of the population enjoy outdoor pursuits.

TLOML and I are the only ones within our little social circle here who don't like to spend our weekends mountain biking, rambling and camping. He does at least surf, I suppose, and I do enjoy a light jog along the seafront. But compared to most people we know here we are rather sedentary.

Just like their crunchy cousins across the pond, the good people of North Yorkshire like to get outdoors.

The North Yorkshire Moors. Mile upon mile of rugged beauty inspiring mountain bikers, hikers and pub lunchers.

I think the biggest difference is that while after a good hearty hike, the people of the Bay Area might enjoy a frozen yoghurt or a quinoa burger, over here they reward themselves with a bacon butty or a slice of cake. If anything could persuade me to cycle up Saltburn Bank, or hike around Blakey Ridge, it's that kind of reward. I'm afraid those healthy Californians are missing a trick.