Festive travels with P

After a fabulous Hermosa Christmas, P and I jetted off to the UK for just over a week. It was a little experiment in ‘travels with P’, to see how we fared on a long haul trip without TLOML. He loves my family and my homeland but not quite as much as I do, so we spared him the British winter weather, and the hours inside doing jigsaws on dark afternoons. I was a little trepidatious about the 20 something hour trip (flying straight up to North Yorkshire after our LAX to LHR flight) but we didn’t encounter any problems some M&Ms and an ipad couldn’t solve.

And it was totally, absolutely and completely worth it. Everything I wanted, and more. Plenty of goofing around with cousins, playing with aunts, uncles and grandparents for P. Mince pies, decent cheese, bread and chocolate for me. We had some muddy walks, fish and chips on the sea front on New Year’s Day, and even a little snow. P’s delight at seeing misty breath – ‘look mummy! That dog has smoke coming out of its mouth!’ – and moss, something she mostly sees in Brambly Hedge stories, was priceless. And I got to enjoy some fine evenings of conversation and vino collapso with my lovely sisters and a couple of very dear friends. Bliss.

'Look mummy! Moss!'

Just enough snow for a snowball fight with cousins

I hope by exposing P to a slice of British winter to continue her education as a Brit. Albeit a Californian Brit. But as we stepped out into the Valley Gardens, she looked in horror at the muddy path she was walking on and wailed ‘Mummy what is this we are standing on!?’, I realised we still have a long way to go. I’m not sure I want to abandon TLOML every New Year, but a trip along these lines may have to be repeated at some point. For P, you understand (nothing to do with the bread, cheese, and vino collapso at all).

Trade-offs and the trip home

P's annual English immersion experience is over for another year. Now she's four the time in transit is an awful lot easier and the whole trip even more fun. She loved riding the tube and double decker buses, making friends with our friends' kids, playing with her cousins and all her quality time with my parents and sisters. She did some dam building on the beach, saw a jousting display at Leeds castle, petted lambs, and played a lot of elaborate games with her cousins in granny's garden.

It wasn't all about P. We enjoyed a week's holiday in Kent with the friends we used to holiday with pre-parenthood. It was just like the old days but our afternoons drinking wine and chatting in the sun now have a backdrop of children arguing over whose turn it was on the swing. Pretty blissful, as it goes. The week in Kent did rather squeeze our time with my family, and meant a couple of fewer days in London, but it made the trip feel more like a holiday. Quality time with fewer people than we might otherwise spread ourselves thin trying to see:  that's the trade off. Life, it seems is all about trade-offs, and making a deal you can live with. We traded an easier, more secure life in the golden state for our beloved London - with the sweetener of a return trip every year. Now the key is to get the balance right on those return trips. We can never do everything, or see everyone, but I think we made the best of our limited time.

P did pretty well at blending in as a Brit, I thought. She ate Scotch eggs and proper bangers with relish and went on walks in the rain without complaint. There were, however, a couple of giveaways. I had to remind her what a nettle was a few times (of course, she could school her British peers in earthquake safety but that's not nearly as useful as nettle-awareness when you're negotiating the playing fields and country lanes of Yorkshire). And as we pulled up outside my sister's beautifully proportioned, terraced, Victorian townhouse she commented that 'the houses are all stuck together!' adding that in her opinion, this was 'crazy town'. Perhaps one day she'll have her own blog about transatlantic differences. 

Now we're home, back into the routine of work, and play, and the sunny beach life. It ought to get easier to return. After all, I am more settled here, bolstered by more places and people I love with each passing year. But London's grip is tight: I still suffer a little bereavement every time we leave. Nothing a Tuesday taco and an afternoon watching volleyball under a perfect blue sky won't cure, I'm sure.

England, compressed

I really want, on these trips back to the UK, for P to soak up some Englishness. I want her to develop an easy familiarity with English manners and customs, food, and just the general vibe. A big part of it is understanding the way things used to be. So she can read - as I did - a Milly Molly Mandy book, or a Secret Seven, and fully understand what a blacksmith is or why someone might be beating their carpets.

What better way to achieve this than a quick tour around a model village? So we headed to Bekonscot. All of English life is there, and much of it still as it was when the village was built in 1929. A blacksmith, a town square, a race course, a little harbor, lots of trains (pre-Beeching, of course) and just lots of English scenes. It was the perfect opportunity for me to explain the ways of our people.

'Look, there are some people playing cricket', I said. 'Where is the cricket?' she said, looking, I think, for a chirruping insect.

'I don't see any cricket'

Brownies around a maypole

A town cryer.

 'He's telling everybody the news,' I explained. 'But why?' came the inevitable answer. Is now a good time to explain that there was a time without TV and internets? No, onward to the 1930s zoo, complete with a chimps tea party.

Anyone who loves Curious George is perfectly comfortable with the idea of dressing up chimps to put on a show. So P had no questions about this bit.

The only thing I couldn't explain was the ring of people dressed in yellow and brown, bending over. P said they were doing their exercises. I'm not sure but didn't have a better answer. Suggestions welcome...

All in all it was a very efficient way to cover a lot of ground in a short space of time. Now her education is complete we can relax and enjoy the rest of the trip rather more aimlessly.

Exotic imports

We are off for our annual trip to the UK and I'm, predictably, beside myself. The prospect of two glorious weeks with family and friends is making me beam from ear to ear.

But it's not just the people. It's the stuff. There are some things you just can't buy in the US. Or if you can buy them, they're just not the same as the British versions. I'm not saying whose version is better and whose is worse. I'm just used to the British way of life. (Okay, I'll say it, I think sometimes the British way is better).

Marmite and M&S tights are probably obvious. But did you know it's really hard - almost impossible - to find mint flavoured toothpaste for children? It's all bubble gum or strawberry or sparkly. Since Lady P enjoys minty toothpaste I'm not sure why I'd want her using something that tastes like candy.

And birthday cards too. It's SO hard to find a card which isn't elaborately verbose, covered in glitter, or both. I can go out of my way to an artisanal gift shop and buy a witty letterpress one overtime someone's birthday comes around (but that takes time and I'm short on that) or I can just stock up on nice, simple British cards for the year ahead.

So here's to reconnecting with loved ones - and here's to my annual spree at Boots, M&S and John Lewis.

I still love London. Sorry.

That trip to London did not, predictably, cure me of my love for my former city.

How could it? A trip to Buckingham Palace and a couple of days with the originals of my family was just an absolute treat. There was the delight of an evening at the theatre, something I never do in LA. And a morning at the National Gallery, because in London you can just wander in off the street and gaze at Renoirs and Canalettos and Gainsboroughs and it’s no big deal (I’m still building up to the 40 minute drive and weeks-ahead booking required for the Broad here in LA). I've been visiting the National for almost twenty years but I still see something new every time I visit: I'd never really paid attention before to the awesome mosaics on the landings.

And quality time – not quite enough of it, but still – with some of my oldest, dearest friends, setting the world to rights and catching up on trivia and gossip. There was really really good cheese and passable black pudding at perfectly ordinary cafes. Proper cups of tea. Sitting on the top deck of a bus and enjoying the view. Pubs. Dogs in pubs. That thing they're doing where they put pianos in stations for anyone to play.

Classic London corner shop

Mosaics on the floor at the National

Piano at St Pancras

Bricks and mortar and old fashioned signs

Grey skies over Hampstead Heath

Brick houses all in a row

Dogs in pubs

And there were the perhaps less obvious pleasures. Like WHSmiths and corner shops and Marks and Spencer. Brick houses all in a row, pleasingly uniform in design. Painted road signs on the brick houses. Walking into the Booking Office bar, at St Pancras, to be surprised by a row of men all in suits. Because lots of men in London do wear suits. To my eyes, accustomed to t-shirts and flip-flops everywhere, for a moment it looked like a scene from a period drama. But that's just London.

Oh, and the cosy pleasure of wearing knee socks pulled up under jeans. That’s right, even the alternately freezing and damp weather couldn’t dint my happiness at being in London. I even enjoyed running for a train and having to stand up on a cramped tube. Admittedly those pleasures might fade after a long winter or a regular commute.

Having said all that, I was in fact extremely, giddily happy to come home to Hermosa. Any pangs I felt on leaving London were suffocated in Lady P’s excited embrace, and TLOML’s relieved one. For home is where the heart is, after all. And sweet, sunny Hermosa Beach is where my heart resides*.


*All of it except that little sliver I left behind, somewhere between the Portugese deli in Kentish Town where a pound of parma ham costs three quid, and that walk in the drizzle across the bottom of Hampstead Heath.

A flying visit

The first year that I lived in LA I returned to the UK no fewer than eight times. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a week or two. Sometimes on a whim, sometimes for a good reason. Sometimes with TLOML, sometimes solo. I stayed pretty well connected with my friends and family. There are plenty of people I saw just as frequently that first year in LA as I had done when I lived in London.

These days, trips back home are planned far in advance, and heavily itinerised.  It's too far to go for Lady P to handle a short trip. So we go for a couple of weeks or more in the summer, and pack in as many friends and family as we possibly can.

When my parents and sisters started planning a trip to London in February I didn't plan on joining them. Not at first anyway.

My mum is getting an MBE. Which is kind of a big deal. My parents and my three sisters will all be together in London celebrating. And I think what really tipped me over the edge was my dad asking me for restaurant suggestions, and the thought of them all together for my mum's big day in my city, and me, thousands of miles away... I couldn't stand not to be a part of it. TLOML told me 'You have to go'. And he's rarely so dictatorial, so I think he really meant it.

One last minute flight booking later, and I am London-bound. Abandoning Lady P and TLOML for five days while I live it up in my old stamping grounds. I'll spend a couple of days with my family, and another day or so catching up with a couple of good friends, trying not to fret too much about the friends (and nieces and nephews and so on) that I won't get to see. It could be a bit of an exercise in frustration, because the time is so short, but I'll take what I can get.

Every time I say that I miss London and the seasons, TLOML says 'Go! Go now, while it's cold and dark and rainy!'. Well, it's 26c with glorious clear blue skies in Hermosa as I write this. And it'll be 9c and rainy in London when I land. Despite that, and much to TLOML's bafflement, I'm pretty excited.

Family code

We just returned from a blissful two weeks in England, with family and friends. Included in that was a good chunk of time at my parents' house with a rotating cast of my sisters and their families. Lady P proved her adaptability by strolling straight in as if she owned the place, taking naps wherever we put her, and mastering the empire of Weebles with speed.

TLOML, on the other hand, not so much. He has known my family now for almost six years. You would think he had it all down by now. And yet, he still made some naive errors.

First of all, he failed to appear in the kitchen during a hastily put together lunch. Five children and five adults squeezed around the table to devour some cheese on toast. TLOML, relaxing in the living room, noticed it had gone quiet and came to find out where everyone had gone to discover all the cheesiest bits of toast gone. He reproached me for not calling him in, but as he knows, in the chaos of that house, no-one is keeping track of meal attendance.

Secondly, he then said 'Does anyone want a cup of tea'. 'Not with lunch!' said all the other grown ups, much in the horrified tone that one might respond to an offer of, say, a squashed spider on their toast.

Later that day he shook his head and said, 'your family, you have so many unwritten rules. Why was everyone so freaked out by drinking tea with cheese on toast'. I could not articulate for him the reason why - it was so obvious and so deeply felt.

A few days later we were back for Sunday lunch, and TLOML sat at the wrong end of the sitting room. I know, hilarious, isn't it? Everyone in my family knows that on Sundays we sit at the back of the sitting room, by the window onto the garden, where the toys are. Never at the TV end of the sitting room. Oh, the shame! And yes, again, he called me out for ridiculous unwritten rules.

Another good one is the order with which you tackle afternoon tea (hot things first, even if they're sweet; then sandwiches; then anything else sweet). The gasp that went around the table the first time he reached for a slice of cake when he hadn't even touched a sandwich - it echoes through my nightmares still,

Another rule: napping in communal areas after lunch ins fine (before would be frowned on).

I suppose every family have their modus operandi, ways of being which are so long established they feel like iron-cast rules. It takes an 'outsider' (albeit one who married) to highlight them, perhaps to disrupt them a bit, to keep things fresh. On reflection, a cup of tea would have just hit the spot with that cheese on toast.

But as we now only return home once a year, I take a great deal of pleasure in knowing that the rules of my parents house will remain just the same. There will always be a right end and a wrong end to sit in the living room, and a correct order to eat afternoon tea. I just need to make sure my husband is better briefed next time.

A change of perspective

On our recent trip to England an old friend asked me if I felt American yet, and we talked about when that shift would happen and how we would know when it did.

A change in perspective - like that provided by a transatlantic trip - is a good test. As we left Heathrow and got on the M25 I noticed, audibly, how small all the cars are. Really, they are. Everyone's driving about in Nissan Micras and Mazda M3s and while these are perfectly serviceable cars, they do look rather small to someone who's been in the US too long. It has been a long time since I noticed how big all the cars in LA are, I should add.

So perhaps I am American already.

As I ate more cheese in our first night than I had in the previous 12 months, I waxed lyrical about the quality of British cheese. Even bog standard supermarket cheddar is better than the crap they sell over here. Apples too, are superior back home: crisp, and crunchy, and perfectly tart. The bread is better, it's less sweet and tastes of actual bread  - and strawberries taste just like they should. Like strawberries, rather than like damp refrigerated air. These are bold value judgments based on a lifetime of having my tastes shaped by British food. I'm prepared to accept that to an American, English cheese might be too tangy, the apples too sour, the strawberries too small, and the bread not sweet enough. Based on my taste preferences, I am definitely still British.

And Lady P? Happily, she persists in calling butter 'buttah'. But to my British family's disappointment, when she wants hydration, she calls for 'warder'. I suppose she is the true transatlantic in this tale.

Coming home

Leaving (what used to be) home was tough.

Saying 'see you next year' to your sisters and your best friends, is just wrong. Thank goodness for those we could say 'see you in September' to. Guests may not come as thick and fast as they did when we lived in Malibu - now everyone has kids, or proper jobs, or both - but as long as we're living by the beach I think we'll be a destination for friends and family.

As for the rest, those we don't know quite when we'll see again, well, it was very hard to say goodbye. 'See you on Skype' is not a happy phrase.

Still, coming home was good.

Not a terrible place to come back to, after all

Highlights of the return include seeing Lady P reunited with her nanny and the reconvention of their adorable mutual appreciation society. Also running the woodchip and along the beach, and a bike ride with TLOML up to El Segundo and back. Basically getting back into the lovely outdoorsy Hermosan lifestyle.

And becoming reacquainted with the enormous range of Cheerios you Americans enjoy.

The only Cheerios sold in the UK are sugar coated, which I discovered having bought a monster size box. Well, we were on holiday after all. So Lady P enjoyed 'holiday cereal' for a month and is now back on the wholegrain, low(er) sugar version. In fact, we are all eating rather more healthily now we're back in the land of unappealing tasteless cheese and oddly sweet bread.

I've enjoyed catching up on the beach with an old friend and setting the world to rights over poolside margaritas with newer friends.  And last night we had cocktails and seafood in a quintessentially SoCal restaurant, which was almost good enough to make me never want to leave this country again.

I did say almost. Roll on next summer and our next trip home.

Our trip in numbers*

*Lazy format I know. But I have a month of rather low productivity to catch up on, so please forgive the shortcut.

Nights in the UK: 30
Days with rain: At least 20. But, as ever during an English summer, it didn't matter one bit.

Dips in the sea: 1 for me (3 for my dear friend the Gambler, who is made of stronger stuff). That's one swim more than I've managed in Hermosa Beach thus far. It was lovely. Shark free too.

Visitors to Saltburn: 11. That's right, lucky old us, eleven lovely friends made the schlep to come and hang out in our little holiday house by the seaside. Combined with the handful of friends we caught up with in London, and our brilliant family weekend, and almost daily contact with my sister and her crew, this made for a very highly peopled and really very very happy holiday.

Lady P's always assumes people are thrilled to see her, wherever she is, as she rushes about shouting 'HI!'. In the case of a transatlantic flight, or our presence in the airport lounge, this isn't the case. But in the case of the many days spent with friends and family, it was always true. Her sense of self-worth is at an all time high.

% of washes we messed up because we couldn't understand the washing machine: 30. Yes, one in three. I guess TLOML may have a point about all those symbols - and I have clearly been out of the country too long, for I was as clueless as an American about it all.

Nights we had curry for dinner: 4. Which is 13% of our total dinner consumption. On reflection maybe we should have had curry a couple more times. Still, we enjoyed getting reacquainted with a couple of favourite curry houses.
Days without consuming alcohol: 3. I think. But it might only be 2.
Days during which I took any meaningful exercise: 7. Which is pisspoor, especially combined with all those curries, not to mention vast quantities of proper cheese, bread and butter. And leads me nicely to...
Pounds I think I probably gained, and quickly need to shed: somewhere between 7 and 14. At a guess. I have decided not to find out for sure.

Outfit changes required due to uncontrollable, um, bodily eruptions during our 10 hour flight home: for Lady P, 4. For me, 2. To be clear, I wasn't the one doing the clothes soiling.
Hours early Lady P arose today: 2.5. Which, given she just covered an eight hour time difference is not bad. Although it does mean I got up at 4am.

Slices of country life

I want Lady P to get something a little hard to express out of this, and subsequent, trips to the UK - as well as quality time, of course. I want her to soak up a bit of Englishness. A sense of home. And that home (sometimes) is a place with wonky stiles over misty meadows, where eggs are kept out of the fridge, and postboxes are red. Where beaches are not packed with volleyball nets and fringed with palm trees. Where sheep and ducks exist in fields, not just in storybooks. Where marmalade and marmite, scones and 99s are eaten. I also wanted her to do lots of running around, raise her stair climbing skills (we have none at home), be windswept and to splash in puddles.

I am getting it.

Practising on the bandstand steps, like her cousins before her

Grazed knees

Gleefully shouting 'baa'

Damp, slightly cool sand

Literally licking the marmalade out of the little dish it came in

I reckon a few weeks of this every year will keep the little English girl inside her alive.

Quality time

When you're only going to see your family once or twice a year, you have to make those times count. This year we were lucky to have my parents reaching a significant birthday as an excuse for a weekend away. All three of my sisters, their husbands and their children in one house for the weekend. It was brilliant.

I'm talking about having the run of a huge old school house in a picturesque Yorkshire village. A family sports day including a handstand competition and a potato-and-spoon race (anyone who knows my family and our legendary lack of athleticism will find the very concept hilarious). Afternoon birthday tea with the kiddos - followed by a massive dinner for the grown ups when they were all tucked up in bed. Albeit they were awake till 10 with the excitement of sharing a room with their cousins.

I'm talking Lady P taking baths with her big cousins who are basically rock stars in her eyes. A treasure hunt in a rambling house, organised by my oldest niece who gave us all certificates of participation. Older cousins pushing younger ones on swings, roundabouts and see-saws. A rambling run with my little sister and favourite running companion, replete with stunning Dales views and only getting a little bit lost.

Grown ups chilling out while seven small children ate cakes together on a picnic rug on the lawn. That brilliant thing where, when I lost sight of Lady P for a few minutes, a quick shout up the hall 'Anyone seen my baby?' brings the reassuring reply of a three year old saying 'Yes, I'm helping her on the stairs', and I could settle back down to a gossip with my sisters.

And Lady P shouting 'Bapa! Bapa!' as her Bapa (Grandpa) attempted a sneaky nap, giving in moments later to jiggle her on his knee and read her stories. A family trip around a lovely ruined castle, my nieces and nephews so delighted one of them actually went to bed that night wearing his paper crown.

About 2/3 of us in front of the house

Race time: my child is the naked one going the wrong way

Lady P tickling Richard III's toes at the castle

Dreaming of kingdoms

Pure bliss and the making of many happy memories. Bring on next year's trip.