Furnishing the Sugar Cube

Furnishing the Sugar Cube itself is no great challenge. Its modest size will happily accommodate our modest furniture. We had to buy some bookcases and a new sofa bed and that's about it.

Furnishing the garden which surrounds the Sugar Cube is not so easy. As well as the lovely, pebbled backyard we have a patio alongside the living room, and a newly landscaped area next to the office.

The backyard, complete with grape arbour

The office's backyard

And to fill all these various, spacious spaces, we have... a small bistro table and two chairs.

The right thing to do, for the long term, is to go and buy a good, solid teak dining table and chairs. The arbour is about 15 foot long, and is crying out for a long Italian-style table. Then we need a picnic table or a bench, or both, for the space by the office. A breakfast-sized table and chairs for the patio, which is closest to the kitchen so a natural spot for morning coffee in the sunshine. And maybe some lower seating there too, so we can chill outside while Lady P learns to walk / ride a bike/ skateboard on the patio. Oh, and a couple of loungers for this sunny spot in the backyard.

My guestimate suggests that to furnish the entire outside space the way we'd like, we'd need to sell the baby, or a kidney, or both. So it's time to be creative (or, as some might put it, cheap).

I know, I know, first world problems.

An architectural tour of Hermosa Beach: a journey through space and time

Not only do the Haves and Have Nots live side-by-side here. So do the New England Quakers and the Medieval Spanish and the Balinese. Or so it would seem.

Back in the early 20th century, when Hermosa was developed, there were beach cottages. Then came little white box sugar cube houses and their mid century modern bungalow buddies. Then the 80s happened and the money and taste explosion spewed an unrestrained expression of personal style in the shape of massive houses. There are plenty of shiny, post-modernist monstrosities dotted around Hermosa from that era.

In the 90s, this is what the future looked like

As well as the hangover from the post-modernist era, Spanish style was also pretty big in the 90s. You see some nice examples of houses that look very authentically Californian, with their terracotta roofing and sweet Spanish pottery tiles on the steps.

A pretty contemporary Spanish (right next door to a 70s beach cottage).

You also see a lot of their ugly sisters, or 'the Matador's Miniature Castles', as I call them. The Venetian palaces I see are probably from that time too, a time when people dreamt of a more ornate balustrade, or some swagged curtains around their window, or a portico on their patio.

A slice of Venice. Next to a slice of Cape Cod.

Then came the '00s, and the Craftsman, and the Cape Cod and their shingled, white trimmed brethren. And nowadays if you're building a new house in the South Bay it's all about the Balinese and the Plantation style.

All of which is well and good. Each to their own, and all power to those home owner for building the castle of their dreams. The weird thing is the way they sit side-by-side. It's such a hodgepodge. I'm used to England where for the most part houses look like their neighbours, thanks mainly to the fact that it was all built a long time ago.

Old El Paso

Industrial chic meets beach cottage

Neoclassical meets contemporary

Victorian splendour wedged between a slice of Mexico and some midcentury modern. Wonder which was here first.

I like the freedom here, but with idiosyncracy comes a disorienting sense of misplacement. I mean, this is not Cape Cod. Or El Paso. So why live in a house that was designed for that climate? And it must be odd to gaze out from your Venetian balcony onto a house that looks like a 1960s library: like being in a timewarp. And how irritating to be living your sleek, Balinese, luxury hotel-style dream right next door to some salty old seadog. That's the price of freedom, I guess.

Grocery grumblings

When we last lived together in LA, we did a llot of our grocery shopping at super expensive, gourmet, organic, local, hand knitted, artisanal grocers like Bristol Farms or Pacific Coast Greens.

Sadly, the days of spluffing $75 on a home cooked dinner for two are over. We've got a college fund to save for now, after all.

However we are a bit too fancy for our own good. Ralph's, or Von's, or any of those common-or-garden supermarkets don't quite cut it. For one thing, they don't always stock European butter. They are also often short on good fresh seafood. And their ground meats all contain mysterious 'natural flavourings' i.e. '100% ground turkey with natural flavourings'. I assume the fact they need to call them out on the packaging means these are not the natural flavourings which, um, naturally occur within turkey. Needless to say, I miss Saltburn and Sainos and the butcher very much, as I stand tutting to myself in the aisle.

On the advice of some people who are unintimidated by enormous warehouses, we tried CostCo. The one near us hosts a fresh fish guy every Friday and Saturday. You could almost call it a fishmonger pop-up store. Except that it's in a CostCo. The fish is genuinely fresh and you can buy Kerrygold butter in bulk there too.

And yet... and yet there's something just too depressing about shopping in CostCo. It's that moment when you find yourself clutching a 6lb packet of spaghetti, saying 'this is so cheap!' and realising you don't have the cupboard space for it – because you're not running an Italian restaurant. And you put it down and shuffle on and think 'that's another 30 seconds minutes of my life I'll never get back'. That and feeling a bit wired from the horrible lighting and all the sugary samples I couldn't resist.

So it is that we came to track down our nearest Korean grocery. TLOML loves a good Korean grocery, and tells me they are famously inexpensive, for Koreans are famously smart shoppers. Plus they have an incredible range of seafood including plenty of live shellfish, and some obscure species to boot.

We did a big shop, stocked up on the good kim chee and some very inexpensive oils and fruit and veg. But I didn't like it. It was packed, and overstocked, and full of people who'd been there a million times before and know where everything was and what the heck everything was too.

As I stood, baffled by the tea selection and stumped by the shellfish, I was jostled constantly. I don't speak Korean but I'd hazard a guess that the murmur as they passed me was “Look at this pale faced giant – she looks like she's never seen a geoduck in her life!”.

Or what to do with a geoduck?

Am I the only one here who doesn't know what balloon tea is?

TLOML can handle the Korean market, and he has the mental strength for CostCo too. But when it's my turn to pick up the groceries, I'm afraid it's back to Ralph's or Von's. Or if I'm feeling a bit extravagant, Bristol Farms.

Flying the flag

It's normal here to fly a flag outside your home. Most are stars and stripes, though you do also see the odd Californian bear or some university colours.

Many, if not most, houses are equipped with a flagpole or a flagpole stand. This house is one of the 30% of homes on our street with the Stars and Stripes proudly displayed outside.

The Sugar Cube has a little flag pole holder thingy by the front door too. I was mystified by it, but TLOML knew exactly what to do with it.

And this is what he did:

I must admit, I am slightly embarrassed. It's just not very, um, British, to fly a British flag. I mean, unless you're an England fan during the World Cup of course...

On balance, I think I'll let friendliness and warmth - if not actual national pride - win over and leave the flag up, to let the neighbours know there's a new family on the street, and we're a bit British. Also I like the way he sings God Save the Queen with Lady P each morning when he puts the flag up.

Settling In

As you know I do love a routine. A rut  is a comfortable place for me to be. And we've quickly established one here. I often get up early to work, and take work calls in the evenings too. So I always walk away from my desk around 7am for a leisurely breakfast and lengthy conversation about animal sounds with Lady P. I love that time together, when she's full of the news from her dreams and her décor ('hoo hoo' for the owl, and so on), and thrilled by the birds flying over the patio, and her morning milk, and pushing her little cart around. It's also the perfect time to skype my much-missed little sister and catch up on her news, which is more intelligible.

Whenever I can, I log off early too, so I can dispatch Dani, the nanny and get some more quality time with Lady P. We usually go for a walk, run some errands, and wander along the Strand. There's a swing set there that Dani won't use for fear of the buggy being stolen (it's not very sand friendly, so you have to leave it by the path while you use the swings which are about 30 feet away). Dani's from Rio, so I can understand her concern – I was once mugged by a 6 year old on Copacabana beach – but this is Hermosa, so I park up the buggy and forget about it while Lady P kicks excitedly as soon as she sees the swing set. That wade across the 30 feet of sand must feel like an eternity to her, and she's usually fit to burst by the time we reach the swing set. Sometimes we go home via the shops, sometimes we take the scenic route up a walk street or along the woodchip path. Whatever we do it is a highlight of my day, as Lady P is such good company and so full of wonder at the stuff we pass: overhead phone wires, dogs, people playing volleyball and the apple stand at Von's are all sources of delight.

Trundling along the Strand

The swings I like best

So the fact that I'm away with work, on the East Coast from Sunday night till Friday this week, is making me a bit miserable. What's worse is that our container is finally ready for delivery, which means TLOML has to deal with the hassle of that on his own. That's a double blow because I feel guilty for not being there to help, and also anxiety about where he'll put things without me there to micromanage the unpack. I have delivered a strict briefing about the kitchen system, but fear some of the details may have fallen on deaf ears.

Ah well, it's not all bad news. There are at least three silver linings in the cloud: 1) I get to have dinner with my favourite New Yorker 2) When I'm back we will be truly settled, sofa, egg timer and all. And 3) I intend to clawback all the extra hours I'm now 'owed' from this week of travel and spend them all hanging out with Lady P. In a fully furnished Sugar Cube!