August 4th, Saturday.

Strange days have found us. Too late and tired now to tell all. Lengthy flight on Virgin. Good food scramble for plane. Saw The Mexican. Endless wait in customs then even longer at Dollar. Pelted through San Francisco through heavy traffic. GG Bridge tiny by comparison with Sunshine Skyway. Into Marin rather like Devon meets the Dales. The house is amazing. Clint Eastwood ought to be living here. Bacon and eggs from the 7/11 then bed at 9.30. 6 a.m. really.

The house is immaculate, a wooden dream home in the midst of lush exotic trees perched on a hillside overlooking the Pacific. Last night San Francisco was visible as a spray of golden lights down the coast. A full moon and thousands of twinkling stars, I expect to be taking a hot Jacuzzi soon.

Sunday 5th. Awake at 6, eventually. Fog over the bay. Peter the cat very happy to be pampered by the children. Sue digesting house regulations. What to do out here on the edge of the world? Explore.

Into Mill Valley for brunch. Outdoor at the Depot Cafe. We are in "The Serial". There is even a well groomed film star dude reading a script. Everyone is so twee. So dinky. Felt like bellowing "I'll arm wrestle any man in this patisserie.

Drove to Bell market which is at least the equal of Publix. Stocked up for the week. Out to Muir Beach. Bleak, grey sand. Unspoilt I believe the word is. Then up the coast to Stinson. Road wandering precipitously round headlands with sheer drops and hairpins. Very groovy, the Sunday lunch crowd in pastel jackets and sports cars. Sat on windswept beach and turned lobster colour. Back for Chicken salad at home and another loll in the hot tub overlooking the bay across the tops of the trimmed trees. This is so very lovely this house. Upwards of $2 million I'd say. It's going to be hard to leave, I can feel it. Bed at nine-ish. Pooped and lagged.

The house is built on the side of a hill. Everywhere is very hilly here. It looks down on a bay a hundred feet below. All the hills are covered with exotic tropical trees. There is a hill to the left normally covered in light brown grass. Now only the top is showing above a cloud bank. There is a deep cold water patch out to sea which generates these clouds which roll in to SF and cover the city in the afternoons. The house faces lengthways onto the bay. At one end is the kitchen, then a huge high ceiling living area then the master bedroom. At this end there is an upstairs bedroom for A&F. Then below there are two more bedrooms for P & J. All rooms have bathrooms and cupboards. Our view at night is of the bay and stars and SF across the water. There is a wooden deck and balcony running the length of the house outside the windows in the centre of which there is a wooden Jacuzzi. Like the one in Florida only plastic lined not tiled. We can lie in the tub all night if we like. Fantastic out here on the edge of the world. The Pacific at the bottom of the hill stretches thousands of miles to Australia. You certainly feel you are on the limit of civilisation here. And now we go into SF for some shopping.

Monday: Thickish fog, over the GG Bridge towers out of sight, and into the city. You need a three dimensional map of this place. Streets go up and up. You hang on to a junction like a perching bird then swoop down or even more steeply up. Traffic gently waits at intersections taking turns to plummet off these ledges or roar off up almost vertical hills. People park with wheels turned in or leave cars at diagonals that look as if they could roll over and over down to the bottom. Nor is there any sense of achievement. You can drive up and down and sideways down and sideways up without ever getting anywhere. There is no reason to these hills. They are there and lead nowhere. You don't ascend or descend to get anywhere. They just happen. A three dimensional map would be a great boon. Lunch after a walk up into Chinatown. A wander around to Gap on Market Street. A stroll through a tunnel for heaven's sake and a drive to Fisherman's Wharf. Tacky as hell. Why do people flock to places like this? Or South Street Seaport in NYC? Equally fake.

Down Lombard Street, the windy road in What's Up Doc then over to Haight Ashbury. Down at heel and still attracting deadbeats. Still there it was only to be copied endlessly around the world and still thriving in Camden Town Notting Hill and St Germain. Drove through GG Park which is like a shabby version of Central Park. At the end it fades into dunes on the sea front. Back via Sausalito which is very very pretty. Every inch must be worth a fortune. Drove round the cheek by jowl houses. Lovely and what views across the bay to SF. Where indeed there are views at every hilltop and ascent. Great to live and work here. But you'd need so much money, I suspect. Home for shrimp in garlic and bottle of Buena Vista. And what tomorrow our, mid point?

Tuesday 7th. Waffly breakfast. We're off to see the Godfather and the Tucker at Napa. House shrouded in mist, very misleading, as it's probably blazing sunshine round the corner in Oakland. Need to return to SF for more photography and another Gap where out of season stuff ends up. What to buy Sandra as a leaving gift?

It is no wonder FFC settled up in Napa with his winery. The terrain is exactly like Tuscany with rolling brown hills festooned with green bushes and lush trees. Italianate villas perch atop hills concealed by masks of cypresses. And for mile after gently rolling mile vines grow in regimented rows. At Rutherford north of Napa we turn into the Niebaum Coppola estate. A gravelled entrance with fountain and into the main building the Inglenook where I ask about the car. Upstairs, there stands a blue Tucker. Not 1038 the maroon one I am expecting. Nevertheless there I am next to a Tucker. It is larger and rounder than I expect. It is truly a work of beauty and love. Perfectly proportioned and I wish I could hear its engine. Next to it is the trophy cabinet with four Oscars and the desk from the Godfather. Downstairs we buy T-shirts and wine. Then back to Napa for a lunch at Downtown Joe's. Excellent food. So much more intelligent than the food in Florida. There is care and understanding, not guesswork at work here. Back South over the Oakland Bay Bridge to SF once more. Back to Gap and Niketown. Parked in Ellis Street. Good and cheap car park near Union Square. Drove up and down hills for the fun of it. Up and up and up, and down down and down. Up to Coit Tower for views then back over the GG Bridge in thick swirling fog. Mysterious and exciting, great billows of it belching down the ravines and across the freeway. Then clear shafts of sunshine. What a blizzard of changes there are here. Spoke to Sandra. She seems nice and keen to hear we are happy. CSN and Miles Davis and a bottle of Coppola wine.

Wednesday. Into the woods. Muir Woods. 800 year old Californian Redwood forest. Off the beaten track up up up and up into the tree canopy then out into the sunlight above. A narrow pathway wanders around the edges of the canyons with wooden bridges. We are on the Ocean View trail. Then down down down where the climb is so steep wooden steps are cut into the path. Glad we didn't come up this way. The tendons on the back of my knees are beginning to turn wobbly as if I may lose control of my walking and tumble headlong down through several hindered feet of bracken to the valley floor. Along Fern Creek with a babbling brook. In winter this must be a cascading torrent. Then back on to the paved trails on the bottom where slow trudging fat tourists convince themselves they have actually been for a walk. Three miles at least we've done and constantly at a 40 degree angle at least. Lunch on Stinson beach and the children paddle in the freezing Pacific. A foghorn blows to warn of the incoming mist and we return to a late pasta supper.

Thursday. Drove South over the GG Bridge across GG Park on 19th Street through grubby suburbia. Down here the houses are tiny with the same rococo features only jammed cheek by jowl along the sidewalks next to a six lane highway of solid traffic. I doubt the owners ever venture onto their half-timbered balconies or crenelated verandas for cocktails down here. Onto the US 280 South towards San Jose and turn off at Cupertino. It is a small undistinguished Southern California town, neat though. In the Post Office queue a woman tells me that Apple is two blocks down on the left. And there it is. Clean, three stories high and a park of offices. Men stroll around in shorts with bulging guts and ponytails. These must be the geniuses who create. At reception a woman says there is little to see but we can print our own visitors labels. Then we can visit the retail shop. I wander off for a pee and spy the employees taking a communal lunch under sunshades across the lawn. In the shop I see how fast my homepage loads on a wide screen OSX - in about a millisecond. I buy a T-shirt. We leave. A brand new Mercedes 500 saloon stands unregistered gathering dust in the parking lot.

Off the freeway North up up up into the Santa Cruz mountains. 2400 feet high we find the US 35 along the ridge, the Skyway road. It is a fabulous winding twisting ride through tall trees throwing patches of shade across the road. Jeremy Clarkson would sell his soul to drive a TVR Tuscan along here. The children are beginning to moan about food, when all of a sudden we strike Four Corners. A junction with gas stations and funky down home cooking at Alice's Restaurant among the tall Douglas firs. Thank you Lord. After a burgery lunch alongside some no nonsense biker types who swarm all over these roads, we descend to the Pacific coast at Half Moon bay which is a down at heel Mexican enclave full of garden centres and allotments. And so back to San Francisco, across the GG Bridge and homeward. Stopped in Sausalito for an ice cream. It is really just another tourist trap, more upscale than Fisherman's Wharf. Twee shops full of over priced trinkets for the punters who want to take something back on their plucky crossing over the Bay. More shopping at Bell. A bottle of champagne for Sandra.

Friday. Our last day here. Up late sun shining so we stay home. There is a performance of Romeo and Juliet at Stinson Beach tonight, set in 1940's Bebop America. I reserve tickets. Laundry and sunbathing today. Thinking of Yosemite, part two of the holiday. What will it be like to not have control of our destiny, to be at the mercy of staff, no kitchen or washing machine?

Lounged about, attempted left-handed guitar, fried tiger prawns, splooshed in the Jacuzzi. Then out at six to Stinson Beach to see Shakespeare. The theatre is next to the post office near the beach car park under the trees. Idyllic really. We sit in the open-air amphitheatre and await the players. It is set in modern dress with a slight 40's bebop theme. Mercutio is very good - a Michael Storm - Romeo looks like Cousin Andrew and Juliet is a Chinese person who seems to be in a constant state of woe. The fights are good, the dramatics work well. The Friar appears memorably in one scene as Jackson Pollock. Yet part two seem like another play with just endless misery and death. The overhead heating comes on as we all huddle together. The smart money has brought puffer jackets and blankets. The stars come out as Romeo calls to them. A plane passes overhead. A car guns its motor as shots are fired onstage and fake blood spurts. I think Shakespeare would have liked the vigour of this production. There is little trace of American English apart from the Friar's use of 'erbs. We drive home cautiously in a line along the perilous cliff-top road. One slip, and it's curtains. And so to bed.

Saturday 11th August. Paradise lost. Across the Oakland Bay Bridge and down the 580 to Modesto for lunch.Home of George Lucas. The guide recommends the A&W Root Beer Drive in. It's where Lucas got the idea for American Graffiti. The burgers are good the waitresses roller skate. The root beer "as good as our burgers" tastes revolting. One export that never made it. Then up across the thundering truck route into the hills, then mountains, then forests. Tenaya Lodge awaits. It's like a prison camp. We even have a number. The staff don't care, the place is packed with fat American and ghostly white English. I shall be happy to get back to the coast. We swim in the freezing cold outdoors pool. I fail to get a CompuServe connection. What a difference a day makes. Sprawncy dinner in the Sierra restaurant where our waiter was pleased to serve us. Restless night due to air conditioning being left on.

Sunday 12th August. Breakfast where Chris served us. A squashed bear spread-eagled on the wall then out to Yosemite. Up and up a winding road though not as winding as Muir Beach, up into the woods and mountains. When we emerge through the Wawona tunnel there it is. Into the purple valley. A splendid sight. Looming peaks and lush forests with the promise of tumbling waterfalls. Down to the bottom to Curry Village where we rented bikes. A lot of fun cycling around all day. Stopped for lunch at the snooty Ahwahnee.

Magnificent in its understated stone and wood and Indian motifs. We had salads and beers. Then back on our bikes and round to the Falls, which of course weren't falling. In winter they must be sensational. A glimpse at the giant Sequoias in Mariposa Grove then back to the Tenaya Lodge. Hopefully some of the punters will have left for their jobs in Fresno. My bum hurts.

I really don't like this place. The staff in the restaurants are so encumbered with politenesses and choices that you become intimidated by their routines. We find ourselves baffled, accepting poor service caught in a web of procedure. Shane at the front desk wants to charge us a cancellation for leaving one day early. I glower at him and he waives it. We are leaving for Monterey on Tuesday.

Monday. Unplanned day. We set off down a dirt road, all bikes already rented out. The car is not suited to this type of terrain. I feel uneasy about wandering off into the woods and as I have a headache suggest we return. There is grumpiness from the children. Sue attempts the washing, the children swim, I snooze.

Tuesday: Escape from Alcatraz. Breakfast in a gold miner's eatery in the one horse town of Coursegold. Excellent local fayre, so much of an improvement over the Tenaya Lodge's apparent sophistication. Amazing how easily you can become sensorially deprived while locked away. Down off the hills across a dusty dry valley where Italian immigrants grow tomatoes by the truck and trailer load and straight west over the windmill hills and into the Hilton in Monterey. Rather snooty about booking 2 nights so we'll see. Nice email from Sandra. Swam in salty pool then out to Fisherman's Wharf for an Italian crab, I hope.

I am surprised by the amount of Spanish people here. Why I don't know, as all the places have Spanish names. I just thought they'd left the names behind and returned to Mexico. Wrong. They are still here, and in a noticeable about face, rich Mexicans send their children to stay in the Hilton with fat white nannies.

And out into the night. Fisherman's Wharf is a smaller version of SF out on two piers. There are however two of Monterey's finest eateries here. Into one the blue one as opposed to the brown one for a bottle of finest Monterey Chardonnay, cups of chowder and a huge seafood gumbo thing. I had to wear a bib. Sensational. Bought trinkets on the pier and spied the whaling boats, looking ominously similar to the Orca in Jaws. Comfortable snooze despite the people upstairs moving wardrobes around all night. Sue left message for Tony in SF Hilton. Booked rooms for Friday and Saturday in Santa Monica at the Holiday Inn. Extended reservation here for one night, despite protestations of increased fees from receptionists who seem to know little.

Wednesday: Talk of Aquarium and Carmel. Well the Aquarium was fine although a little light on fish I thought. Very educational for youngsters. Bit dull for oldsters. Cannery Row once an alley of corrugated iron factories had gone all Carnaby Street. Into the car for a drive round the 17-mile coast drive. "What do I get for my 8 dollars", I asked the gateman. "You get a receipt and a map", he smartly responded. Fantastic mansions along Pacific Grove and into Pebble Beach. As if a whole bunch of Scarface types had suddenly acquired land rites. Construction going on everywhere. Pebble Beach filling up with classic Bentleys for the car show tomorrow. It is ever so slightly South of France here.

Carmel however looks like Disney's attempt at the Cotswolds meet Hansel and Gretel. Wonderful white sand. A wasted afternoon at the Del Monte Mall where I managed to find a pair of socks. Back for a swim in the fog at the Hilton. Out for dinner on the Wharf again. Less fancy this time. Spoke to Tony W in SF. Booked the Madonna in SLO.

Thursday. Off to Big Sur. On the road I have never seen so many Ferraris and Porsches all heading for PebbleBeach. At the Hilton we spotted Duesenbergs and other exotics heading for the show too. Every classic in America must be there.

Lunch at a gay roadside restaurant. Rather butch.

No time for San Simeon. Took a telephoto shot of the outside. Another time.

Heavy fog all down the coast. Big Sur is spectacular but Cornwall is good too. Also rather like Scotland. At last the sun is shining and the roads are wide and it feels like the California I was expecting.

Here we are at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. Barking mad, this place, Mr Madonna a highway construction owner built this Hansel and Gretel paradise out of pure love. John Wayne and George Burns had a share in it too. The clothing in the man's store is obviously his own wardrobe. I have never seen such dreadful taste, but somehow kinda appealing. The ladies shop looks like a second hand dowager duchess's cast-offs. We are staying in two vast rooms tackily done up like London and Paris, Bayswater Road art style. We love it.

Dinner in the pink leather and rose patterned carpet under twinkling flower lights for steak and more steak. Cattle baron's feasts. Mr Madonna ambles by and asks if everything is OK. Hardly the word for it. Louis Theroux should do a programme on this place and get into the mind of the owners. There is great generosity of spirit at work, the rooms are vast and comfortable. More is given than taken. Sue alarmed by the prospect of us turning into Derby and Joan as we shuffle around the dance floor to wannabe Glen Miller tunes.

Friday: On the road south again. Rolling freeways over rolling golden hills. Brunch in Santa Maria at the Brick restaurant with a brick haired waitress and rolled south into Santa Barbara. Cutesy cutesy cutesy again I fear. But as for a shopping mall probably the prettiest. Not a speck of dirt to be seen anywhere. Not even in the loos where security guards monitor who goes in and out of the cubicles.

And at last along the coast through Malibu which stretches forever into the Holiday Inn opposite Santa Monica pier. Three rooms, the children in two adjoining on the top floor. Rooms with a view, of the sea. I sit here at the keyboard, at last overlooking Pacific Palisades feeling like a latter day Raymond Chandler.

Downstairs to the car park for a dip in the pool. Right next to the freeway. Ear plugs are recommended. But fun and a nice pool. We are now in the LA area for the next two weeks. It's different down here. More like the California I have always imagined.

Out into the cool of the evening stroll the pretenders. 3rd Street offers a range of restaurants and a European style passagiata where musicians of all styles captivate the air for as far as their sound will travel. By far the best are a group of Gypsy Kings impersonators. The thudding bass of a nearby electrified beat group thumps into the mix as we move north. I spot the Gaucho Grill and in we go for an almost Parisian dining experience in this Argentinean eatery. Wonderful food. Children a little grumpy. All this travel and change is I suspect getting some of them down. Spotted the pier all electric and fantastic on our return. It looks like a vision of 1920's Coney Island that has remained in a time warp. Slightly uneasy about the mainly Hispanic crowd. Their look is decidedly street tough, the women too all look like tarts. Switch blade lovers, so fast so shiny and so sharp.

Saturday. LA in a day. Off down Santa Monica Boulevard in search of the Tail of the Pup for breakfast. Found it after a few detours. Owner Murry, grumpy and famous. Snaps of him with Barbra and Ryan. Drove to Hollywood. Did the Walk of Fame, Grumman's Chinese hand prints, then up to the sign, into Guitar World and back down Sunset to Beverly Hills and found the house where Elvis met the Beatles. Back down Wilshire to Santa Monica and cycled to Venice and back. Fog rolled in so a chilly return. Out for a cheap and cheerful Chinese. The one we spotted earlier a trendy TJ's Chinese Bistro for heaven's sake was full of mature males packed in the bar and women scoffing bowls of indifferent looking rice. I declined any possibility of eating. The one we went to had no one in it, and the food was great. $150, a steal.

Sunday: Escape from hotels. Drove down to San Clemente and arrived at Barbara's. Her friends Linda and Rodger and Sharon were waiting, Mike arrived later. Very pleasant all-American Barbecue. Barbara is so generous. This is hardly a condo. It is a house. On two floors with a drive in garage. Out to the beach after everyone had left and the girls boogie boarded. This is what they want more than anything. There is a palpable sense of relief in their joy tonight. This is the California version of the Florida holiday they have been yearning for. We'll probably end up staying here and mooching about. Rodger and Linda have offered us their private beach to use. There is a luau on Saturday. Barbara is returning for it. Heaven knows how she does these six hour drives back to Arizona. This must be such an emotional pull here. Shopping at Ralph's and a chicken dinner.

Monday 20th August:

Expect we will get used to the roar of traffic on the freeway rather like people get used to the crash of waves. It is all just a matter of mind over matter. One is desirable the other not, that's all. It's nice to have stopped moving. It's such a pleasure to be able to sleep without the meter running. A few days here I suspect will be very relaxing. The children will be happy to surf all day I suspect. Must check out the pool. Out to Laguna Beach for swimwear, at $130, and back to two beaches on the shore. There are bays in between rising bluffs one apparently manufactured Disney style out of polystyrene. Bluffs indeed. The road is all, oh, and the railroad. They dominate the coastline. The Americans are ruled by whatever it takes to get them to spend money on gasoline. Here the Interstate is built with little or no concern for the villages and towns it sweeps through. They must make do in its wash. The coast road is little better, at times an eight lane highway. Town planning has gone to the dogs. We surf. I listen to the Beach boys. I am in heaven. And rather burnt. Shrimp in garlic for dinner. We are on top of the laundry.

Tuesday: Peggy rather sunburnt so snoozy day. Tennis with Jenny and Sue, then out to see Rat Race, which was rather weak. More shopping at Ralph's. Plan to visit a water park soon, then maybe back to LA end of next week. Getting tired.

Wednesday 22nd August. I continue to be riveted to the rerun of Jazz on PBS. It is truly a great programme and seems to be slightly extended over the one shown on BBC. I must get the DVD. We must go to the beach. Touch of gout, hence use of painkillers. Was it the seafood on Monday? Surfed at Doheny. Or rather boogie-boarded. On the video it looks as if I am in a pond with paddling infants but it really was quite rough, the surf dumping the unwary rider on course gravel. Back for Steak and poker. Bed early as there are plans to go to Anaheim.

Thursday 23rd. Hi ho hi ho, it's back to Disney we go. This time however, it's a 30 minute drive only to Anaheim, into the parking lot onto the tram and into the centre ticket area. Should it be Disneyland or California? Disneyland wins out. It's a much better organised place than Florida, more compact, better built and more rides and stuff packed into a lusher environment. We actually enjoyed it and went on most of the rides, ably employing the Fast Pass system to get from one to the other. With minimum time wasting. Best ride, probably Splash Mountain. Home again in 20 minutes. Saw the fireworks and parade. Some of the fattest people in the world here. What attracts them? The promise of happiness? Being invisible in a crowd, they hope? How they get through the turnstiles I don't know. Perhaps they're marooned in here.

Friday: Snoozed up late. Barbara arriving tomorrow. Better tidy up. Late lunch at Rick's Tropicana Grill in San Clemente on the beach. Fiery Mexican. Good. Lay on the beach south of the pier. This beach is full of half wits. Maybe this is it as far as they can go. Nothing to do but shamble up and down. One man had wandered off for so long his possessions had distributed themselves across twenty feet of beach. He apologised to me on returning. A man with a clipboard asked me if I was registered to vote in California. On hearing I was from London he said "Never mind". Thanks.

Saturday. Barbara arrived. Welcome to your home. Shopped then out to the luau. Rodger very helpful letting the girls ride his board. The event was in a park with a barbecue and Hawaiian dancers. We failed to win a surfboard in the raffle. Met Christy who is very like Katy. Tomorrow we take Barbara for lunch and Rodger teaches the girls to surf.

Sunday 26th. As planned. The Jolly Roger for an extended lunch. Barb's chums Cindy and Sally. Wealthy worldly ladies. Suave you say potato style chat. Lengthy chat to Barb re America. Invited Christy to London. Back for wine and James Taylor.

Monday 27th. Strange to think we'll be at home in a week. Down to the beach, surfed and munched a box of tots. Thinking of how to use the days best. Back for a shower and out to look at Jensen Rugboards. We're obviously turning into bathroom surfers. Tomorrow will be a water park day.

Tuesday 28th. And so it was. Drove up the I5 to Irvine which was a modern town of cream and grey boxes and into Wild Rivers. It's smaller and less overgrown than Adventure Island. The rides are almost as good, but not quite. Still an enjoyable day on slides and waves lugging rubber rings up tall metal towers. Very brown today yet a chill wind blowing in over the three quarters empty - mercifully - car park. Drove home at 5 after seven hours of splooshing. Steak for dinner. Very relaxing. Listened to James Taylor Live part 2. Very uplifting. Shower the people with love. Also philosophical. Riding on a railroad, singing someone else's song. About time I sang my own again. A couple of reflections on California. We switched on the cooker tonight and it automatically began a cleaning programme. Two hours on maximum power. Rather like the hot tub in Muir Beach pumping hot air into the night. Their energy crisis here is not being assisted by machines that drain it around the home. There seems to be no provision for better more cost effective appliances. Second observation. The water park was staffed with young rather irresponsible kids. Backed up by tough security people. How long before they have a serious accident here? It is very easy to get into trouble in the wave pool with a mix of swimmers and people in rubber rings. The two do not work together. One is to do with survival the other fun. At best it felt like a rerun for the Titanic disaster in warmer seas.

Ricky Nelson's Stood Up is one of the greatest records ever.

Wednesday 29th. Lazy morning then tidying frenzy. Out to beach for Tots and coffee. Surfed and boogie boarded till 5. Three good runs on the board. It's all about timing and selection. Catch the right wave and it'll carry you all the way in. Brown as toast. Back for a shower. Expecting Rodger and Linda for dinner at the pier. They arrived and we drank wine and beer. Barbara called. How odd to be entertaining her friends in her home. Out to the pier for salmon overlooking a moonlit bay under flaming outdoor heaters. The squeaky waitress a hoot. "How were the first few bites?î I felt like giving her a blow by blow account of my digestive process. Walked out on the pier under a black sky. Like being on an ocean liner lost at sea. Magical. Said farewells to Rodger and Linda. Hope to meet again soon.

Friday 30th. The end of the endless summer. Some packing, some tidying then a long afternoon at the beach. Good surf, a couple of long rides. Just for a split second I began to get what it's all about. You wait, you select the right wave and you get on your board and rise up with the breaking wave at just the right moment and for that moment you feel the power of the wave beneath you effortlessly lifting and propelling you toward the shore. Surf City. Steaks for dinner. Bed.

Friday 31st. Washing sheets, hoovering and checking. The door men failed to show so left the remote on the mat. Up to LA. Sue into Initiative on Wilshire on smart cool marble offices. I took the girls out to the Peterson museum to see the black Tucker. Sadly parked beside a wall. Other stuff great. Hotrods, Batmobile, Monkeemobile and guitars. Great. Walked back collected Sue and out to the Beverly Centre where we parked, went to the Hard Rock. Thatís three now and into the Beverly Mall for shopping. Another bag and shoes for Katy. Took advice from her over the cellphone by textmessaging. This is what the world of electronics is for. Checked into the Holiday Inn again. Mainly the same rooms.

Out into the night, onto the pier. Children rode the purple rollercoaster for $18. Into the old carousel on the shore end of the pier. Old fortune telling machines. Much the best like the pier must have been. Jennifer predicted to be a chorus girl. Fifi as drudge. I think not. Wandered up 3rd Street promenade again. Like being in a Woody Allen movie. Ice creams at Cool Planet. Watched the show. Great drummer in plastic buckets. Bed at 9.30.

Saturday 1st Sept . Plans for Watts, Downtown and Hollywood again. Shopping too I suspect. Drove down to Watts and in and around East 107th Street and eventually up to Simon Rodiaís towers. An extraordinary achievement. An affirmation of humanity. Reminiscent of the Sagra Famiglia in Barcelona. Beautiful, comical and dazzling. Breathtaking. One of the greatest things I have ever seen. Drove north on Alameda through cement works and half-made highways with no traffic to Union Station. Cool wonderful Spanish mission masterpiece. Built in 1939 when Simon Rodia was only halfway through his towers, it is possibly the best place to arrive in Los Angeles. We enquired about the train to New York for next year. The lady at the Information desk she had come to the station for the first time when she was our girlsí age. Her father worked for Southern Pacific. Drove to Chinatown, which was small and scruffy and full of police cars and cordons. Forget it Julian, itís Chinatown. So West to Hollywood Boulevard and a cool swanky salad in Musso and Franks. Expensive and classy. Peeked at Rodeo Drive, which was crawling with Ferraris and swanky types. All the shops you never want to enter. Over to Century City for shopping. Went to FootLocker and Macyís . Bought Leviís, though neither stores as good as at the Beverly Centre. Back exhausted at 6.

Out to the 3rd Street mall in SM. As good as any. Bought trainers for Amy and Fi and Jen presents. Dined in the local Chinese where the food is good. Bed. What a day.

Sunday 2nd September. The California adventure is at an end. We fly home at 5-ish. Need to check in by 3 and drop the car off. We plan to cycle to Venice this morning. Good eggy breakfast then rented bikes from under the pier again. Charming blokes. South to Venice on the winding path. Wonderful. Sunday in Venice is bums lying on tussocks next to trendy couples with mobiles and laptops. Past the Cadillac hotel near Mojo. What an inspirational place for an ad agency. South to the pier, then back for drinks. Past cheerleaders doing amazing routines throwing girls in the air. Wonderful views of Santa Monica pier on the way back up. Regrettably handed bikes back and showered in hotel.

Drove to LAX and checked car in to Dollar. Bye Bye, Rex. I wonder who will rent it next. Canít be having as much fun as us. Easily onto the Dollar bus the only passengers and out to the terminal. Already a lengthy queue at the check in two and a half-hours early. Late boarding, restricted video entertainment. Currently bumping along just above the cloudbank. It is actually three in the morning, UK time. Must get some sleep on this nine and a half-hour flight. It will be a short period of dark.