California Dreaming 2

[BillB]

I thought maybe the readers of the forum might be interested in our second trip to California this year. Our friends arrived in Luxembourg and we spent two weeks showing them around the area and filling them in on our house and its equipment. On Thursday they dropped us off at the airport so we could catch the BA flight to Gatwick. That went well and the flight was on time and very comfortable.
There are no longer any flights from Lux to Heathrow so Gatwick is our only option. The bus to Heathrow was crowded and a bunch of people with tickets for a later bus were trying to get on. I had to assert my ownership of tickets for this bus to get seats for my wife and myself. Failure to get on the bus would have caused us possibly to miss our flight from Heathrow to San Francisco, or at the least to cut it very fine.
As we had checked in online and printed out our boarding cards we only had to present ourselves and our luggage at a baggage drop desk. We had used our airmiles to upgrade to Club so we were able to spend the remaining time in the Club lounge at Terminal 5.
I can highly recommend this way of travel: free newspapers, a buffet breakfast bar on offer and free drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
The seats in Club on the 747 are very, very comfortable, reclining to flat when you feel like a snooze. The service is pretty good, too, with champagne being brought to you as soon as you are seated. Your TV screen folds out and angles so that you have a good view whatever position you have adjusted your seat to.
Lunch was way better than I expected; the starter was a lobster paté and the main course was sole. I hadn’t ordered the diabetic meal but the meal was as low carb as you could wish for. I was concerned that the dessert would have to be passed on, but it was berries with cream and I was able to eat it without worries. Coffee finished off the meal and provided an accompaniment for my medications. I had had an aperitif of malt whisky to put me in a mellow mood by the time the meal was served.
What my wife and I most appreciated was the space we had. Eating the meal was a pleasure and not just because we got cloth napkins and real knives and forks. We didn’t have to sit there with our elbows pressed into our sides to avoid whacking our neighbour as he took a bite. I read the inflight magazine then reclined my seat and took a nap. When I woke up I watched the film Milk, having missed it at the local theatres and just as it finished afternoon tea was served. I could quickly get addicted to this luxury – in fact, I think I’ll fly less, but in a better grade from now on. :lol:
After we landed I checked my BG and it was only slightly elevated – another good point.
Our flight landed dead on time and there was our friends’ son and his vivacious Mexican wife to meet us. They took us to their home in Sunnyvale and handed over our friends’ car to drive to Aptos.
That evening was a bit of a blur as California is 9 hours behind Luxembourg so we had to live those hours again. By 9 o’clock in the evening our bodies said it was 6 in the morning. We gave up at that point and went to bed, although my wife was awake by 3 a.m.
Our first day was spent unpacking and doing a supermarket shop. I’ve remarked before how diabetic-friendly the supermarkets are here and I was able to find sugar-free or low carb substitutes for most of my favourite foods.
In the evening I cooked Chicken Earle, a recipe which I found on the UKTV food website, fresh broad beans and grated cauliflower fried in butter with bacon pieces.
When we woke up this morning (at a more reasonable hour) we had a great shock – it was raining. It seems it’s almost unheard of to get rain in June, that’s what we got. It’s also quite mild as far as the temperature goes. This part of California is much more temperate than Southern California, which has a sub-tropical climate.
This evening we’re having dinner with our son and his wife. We’ve invited them to a Mexican restaurant where we’ve eaten several times already.

 

[suzi]

Hi Bill,
I'm still as envious as ever, funnily enough its raining here in Northern Ireland! Tho i shouldnt complain its the first rain in about 3wks. We had a beautiful evening yesterday of thunder and lightening a real gem of a sky, which has carried away that oppressive heavyness that accompanies clammy weather.
I sympathize with your body clocks, when we all flew to California and the boys were 3 & 5 and had stayed awake from 5am uk time, flew Belfast to Heathrow then to California arrived at hotel 8pm US time and boys hadn't slept once, they went to bed at 9pm and woke as bright as buttons at 3am. I wouldn't have minded but i hadnt slept in over 20hrs! It took them 3 days to alter there body clocks, by which time Andrew broke out in chicken pox and was covered head to toe. You can imagine the reception he got, as we found out Americans vaccinate against them, and he certainly left an impression with our friends and 2 out of there 7 children.
Enjoy your trip, i look forward to your posts as ever,
Suzi x

 

[BillB]

Thank you, Suzi. I’ve come to rely on you for your feedback. But don’t worry – your travelling time will come. Once your kids are grown up and independent you’ll find what we found – that you have the time and the disposable income to zip off around the world at least once a year. Of course, I can't guarantee that your body clocks will keep up with you, but that's life.
Like most Europeans I thought that California was a land of perpetual sunshine. Why else would they call it the Sunshine State? That was before our first visit, of course. This is our fourth or fifth visit but the first one in the summer. The sea abutting this part of the state is very cold – there is a deep canyon offshore and the water that wells up from the incredible depths is cold, cold, cold. It’s the sea that controls the climate here – cold water, warm air flowing over it and the result is fog. Our friends had warned us that on the coast the temperatures can be 10 or even 20°F lower than a couple of miles inland. Summer is also the time of fogs, though so far we haven’t seen any. We were told that it never rains in June, but we’ve already seen that and so far it’s been cloudy-(ish) with sunny spells. The temperature, however, has been mild, with cool mornings but temperatures climbing gently during the day.
On Sunday we took a drive northwards up Highway 1 to Pescadero, a town originated by Portguese fishermen. We were told of a restaurant there called Duarte’s which came highly recommended. Sadly, the school holidays are now under way here so the little township was crowded. There were so many people milling about outside Duarte’s that we decided to forego that pleasure and settled for a stroll around the town and a sandwich in a small cafe. It’s a historic place with some interesting workshops in private houses offering their works of art for sale.
After lunch we took the long way home, up a winding road that led past Los Gatos in hair-raising twists and turns and brought us to Highway 17.
Monday saw us driving down to Monterey to visit the world famous aquarium. We never come here without a visit to the aquarium and this time they have a new exhibit called The Secret Lives of Sea Horses. There were tanks of sea horses in all their varied glory and we spent quite a time studying them. Whenever we’ve been there in the past it’s been fairly quiet and we’ve wandered around comfortably to view the exhibits. This time, school holidays included, the place was crowded and became uncomfortably overcrowded later in the morning. The upshot was that we cut our visit short and strolled along to one of our favourite restaurants, the Fishhopper, where enjoyed a leisurely lunch of seafood. I took one of my Californian favourites , Ciapino, which is a mix of scallops, clams, mussels, shrimps, squid, white fish and king crab legs in a tomato-based sauce. This is as near to heaven as you can get without dying and I savoured every morsel. My wife took the blackened Ahi tuna, one of her all-time favourites. Both dishes are about as low carb as you can get.
Today we took a drive to Los Gatos, ‘over the hill’ as the locals call it, up Highway 17. We have two favourite shops to visit there – a kitchen shop called Sur La Table, where we managed to spend $70 on various items, and a bookshop called Borders, where we stocked up on reading material.
Tomorrow? Who knows. We haven’t made any plans, but it won’t be dull, that’s for sure.

 

[suzi]

Thanks Bill,
just had to wipe the drowl off my key board as i read and savoured your seafood lunch mmm. Andrew loves seafood, theres not many children who love prawns, smoked fish, mussels and rollmops, his favourite meal is any type of fish with plain bread and butter to sop up the juices, though we tend to limit the slices of bread these days, as they play havoc with his bs.
Kids finish here for the Summer holidays on June 30th for 9 weeks, unlike the English schools who don't finnish til mid/late July, seems like the Californians have a different time scale also.
We're only doing a short holiday this Summer, a visit to Lichfield Staffordshire, York and the kids favourite, good old Blackpool. Then if we get any decent warm weather in August well head down south a week to a log cabin on the lakes in County Cavan.
I'm sure what ever you plan for tommorrow will be as enchanting as today,
Suzi x

 

[Dennis]

As always another brilliant travelogue Bill. You had me reminiscing about some great times in California in years past.

 

[dipsticky]

Jeez bill. You sure know how to travel in style. Wish I had your dough ?

D.

 

[BillB]

Aah, Suzi. If it lives in the sea and has a shell, I’ll eat it (except for winkles). I’ll go for mild white fish as well, but I really can’t stand the oily fish like herring or mackerel. I just dislike the ‘fishiness’ of them, whatever the food fascists are trying to force down our throats. But crab, lobster, shrimps, scampi, cockles, whelks, razor clams, cod, haddock, pangasius, tilapia, trout, salmon, plaice, sole, turbot, halibut, et al, will be happily devoured.
Dennis, you and I seem to have spent years treading in the same footprints. And it suddenly dawned on me that if we bumped into each other we wouldn’t know. Something for me to think about – fate and all its twists and turns.
Well, Dips, it’s not so much a question of dough, but more a question of priorities. I admit I had a good job, but I worked hard for it, mastering three other languages to improve my career choices. Also, my wife and I took a couple of gambles along the way which paid off, luckily for us. In addition, I realised that I wasn’t going to get the maximum pension I could because of the age I was when I joined the organisation so I took out a supplementary pension scheme to top up my post-retirement income. There was also a very small pension from the UK due to the fact that we worked before leaving to work abroad. We leave both the smaller pensions in the bank to pay for our travels. I can’t remember the last time we went to the pub, although we have a drink with dinner. So, as I said, our priority is travelling.
And now it’s confession time. Our friends told us that they are going to Australia in April for two months. Guess who’s volunteered to take care of their house? No prizes are offered for the correct answer. No dates or reservations have been settled so it’s all still wide open.
And now back to California. On Friday we went for lunch to a vacation resort nearby called Seascape. How can an Englishman say that fish and chips in the US is as good as, or even better than, back home? It’s true, though. After lunch we took a drive to the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. This is a fairground, dating back to the 1920s, and boasts the oldest wooden rollercoaster in the US. Our readers on the forum might know it if they’ve seen Clint Eastwood’s film Sudden Impact, where the climax takes place on the Boardwalk at night and the villain falls to his death from the top of the rollercoaster.
It was a relaxing afternoon watching families and their children having fun on the rides. I know America has a reputation for violence, but we have yet to see any. The friendly atmosphere on the Boardwalk was a complete contrast to the reputation. Bump into someone and they will inevitably smile and say excuse me, even when it wasn’t their fault.
As a diabetic I had to harden my heart to all the edible delights on offer. Candy floss, candied nuts, hotdogs and doughnuts were all left firmly alone.
Saturday saw us in Carmel, but what a difference in the weather! On Friday it was hot and sunny, so much so that we had to open all the windows when we got home from Santa Cruz. On Saturday it was overcast with a cold breeze. We wandered about, going into the little art galleries and shops there are everywhere in this gorgeous little town. Then had a Dirty Harry Burger in the Hog’s Breath Inn, a restaurant which was once, but no longer, owned by Clint Eastwood. Why does that man’s name keep coming up? Well, he owns most of the area for a start. There is a nice courtyard at the Inn, but it was so cold outside that we opted to sit inside.
Today, however, the weather is clear and sunny with just enough of a breeze to keep the temperatures comfortable.
This morning the lady across the road called, introduced herself and invited us over for a pasta supper. See what I mean when I talk about American hospitality? I know that pasta is on my denial list, but for lunch I made sure that I had a no-carb roast beef salad so that my spike after the pasta won’t be too bad. And anyway, I reckon that I can indulge something like this as my diet is mostly very low carb. I’ll let you know.

 

[BillB]

Well, the pasta spiked my BG levels but along with my medication I got it down fairly quickly. The evening itself went very pleasantly as our hosts, Susan and Ted, had invited another couple from across the street so the conversation flowed smoothly. It’s now time to invite Susan and Ted back. I’ll cook a low-carb meal and see if they notice.
The weather here has been erratic to such an extent that it has more or less dictated our activities. On Monday we had a domestic day with my wife doing the washing and ironing (I unchained her from the sink for a couple of hours) while I prepared the meals. On Tuesday we decided to go to the outlets at Gilroy to do a bit of shopping. The drive to Gilroy is beautiful, the road taking you to Watsonville, then over the hills, up a windy, twisty road, through the woods. As we climbed we left the coastal fog behind and emerged into glorious sunshine. When we parked the car at the outlets the temperature was over 84°F.
There’s a shop there where I always buy my shoes – no, I’m not boasting, their shoes are really comfortable, stylish and reasonably priced. There is also a jelly bean shop which stocks sugar-free jelly bellies. A fascinating shop is the Calphalon kitchen shop, which I can never pass by without stopping for a browse.
The best fast hamburgers in California are sold by a small chain called In ‘n’ Out, which is where we always have one for lunch. It doesn’t give me much of a spike, either, so together with the walking we do there it keeps me within reasonable limits on my BGs.
Sony has an outlet there and their prices for their LCD TVs and Blu-Ray players are really attractive. Sadly, they won’t play in Europe as American current is 110 volts so it’s pointless buying one. Shame.
The following day my wife suggested a drive to Point Lobos State Park which is a gloriously beautiful area about 10 miles or so south of Carmel. It was misty and overcast when we left Aptos, but the forecast was for the sun to burn off the clouds and it would be a nice day later in the morning. They certainly got that wrong.
When we arrived the clouds were really dark overhead and the fog was clinging to the hillsides. When we got out of the car the wind was cold and penetrating. We hiked around several of the bays taking pictures, but the light was uninspiring and the wind was so cold it finally gave me earache. I suggested we returned when the weather was kinder, a thought my wife seized on, so we left Point Lobos behind and headed for Monterey for a sandwich. We ended up browsing around the stores in the Del Monte Shopping Centre – where they have a Macy’s department store, one of my wife’s favourites, and a Borders book shop.
Thursday I spent cooking as we had invited our son and his wife to dinner in the evening. And on Friday, being at something of a loose end we drove to Old Fisherman’s Wharf for a seafood lunch as the weather again wasn’t too kind. It seems that the coast has a much cooler climate than inland, where it can be 20°F warmer. We followed lunch with a visit to the Monterey Maritime Museum, which is small but fascinating. It’s also free with donations for its upkeep requested. A great way to spend a couple of hours when the weather is being inclement.

 

[BillB]

Last Monday was another domestic day, grocery shopping and domestic chores, but on Tuesday we went down to Carmel as we had been promising ourselves dinner at the Mission Ranch, next to the Carmel Mission. We had stopped off there for a drink with our friends some years ago and had been attracted by its outside patio and its views across the estuary of the Carmel River and the hills beyond.
We arrived in Carmel and took a stroll along Ocean Avenue (Dennis was right about the name of this road the last time I mentioned Carmel) and then went into Carmel Plaza as my wife needed to buy a couple of things. We stopped off at a bistro in the Plaza for lunch – I took the squid salad and it was excellent – and then drove along to the Carmel Mission, one of the early ones established by Junipero Serra, who established most of the early missions in California. The mission is worth a visit as it has beautiful grounds as well as the usual chapels. After our visit it was time to leave for the Ranch, a couple of hundred yards down the road.
Carmel is over an hour’s drive from Aptos so we didn’t really want such a long drive after a good meal so, feeling financially reckless, we booked ourselves a room for the night so we could enjoy a good wine with the meal without the worry of the drive back. Also, as a guest at the hotel, you get priority in the restaurant. I should also say that the Mission Ranch Hotel is owned by you-know-who, who edits his films there in a cabin in the hotel grounds. He obviously didn’t know that we were staying because he didn’t turn up to greet us. :lol:
We had a room in the Farm House, just across from the bar and the restaurant, with the tennis courts just a few yards further on. It was, as the name says, originally a working ranch that was later turned into a bar, popular with the GIs from the nearby Ford Ord and with the locals. Clint had been one of the GIs who hung out there when he was in the service. Later, there were plans mooted to demolish the ranch buildings and put up condominiums on the land which got the locals in a bit of an uproar. That was when Clint stepped in and bought it, promising to keep the place as close to its origin as possible. The regular customers were satisfied, as, one of them said, “Mr Eastwood is a man of his word.”
After checking in we went to our room to unpack and freshen up. Our room was fresh and clean with a pleasant farmhouse decor. We decided to stroll across to the bar and have a drink, but in the interim the wind had risen and the walk across seemed almost arctic. Alas, the wind made it impossible to sit out on the patio as we had previously done, but the bar is a congenial area and the service is excellent.
We returned for dinner at 7, and received some dirty looks from the people who were queuing for a table when the waiter led us past them. We settled down with the menus, sipping our aperitifs. Within a few seconds I began to feel decidedly strange – my appetite vanished and I began to feel nauseated. What a turnup! I decided to forego a starter and settle for just the main course. I had just about decided to order the giant scallops with spinach, hoping that the nausea would fade off. It didn’t so when the meal arrived I managed to eat just two of them without touching anything else on the plate. We ordered coffees so I could take my diabetic meds, and then, feeling distinctly unwell, I made my way back to our room where I fell into bed and slept until around 2 am, when I awoke for an hour before dropping off back to sleep.
The next morning I felt quite normal but my wife had had the thought during the night that my diet the day before had been virtually no carb and I may have been having a hypo. Now as a Type 2 I’ve only had one apparent hypo since I was diagnosed 15 months ago. That time I had felt edgy and nervous with trembles in my fingers. When I looked up the symptoms of a hypo I found that nausea was one of them. So that was the cause of my strange turn. I took my BG straight away and discovered it was 4.9, and this was on waking when it usually climbs. It must have been pretty low the evening before. At least I’ll know what’s going on if it happens again. On the bright side my BG was so low that I was able to have a doughnut with my breakfast.
This year was the first time we’d been in the States for Independence Day. Our friends’ son was having a barbeque in his garden and had invited us along. He lives in Sunnyvale, near San Josè but our TomTom got us there. I had prepared some Tandoori chicken which we took along to add to the menu. There was a real mix of nationalities as our host’s wife is Mexican and her family had arrived from Mexico City for a couple of weeks, there were some of his cousins whose mother had more than once babysat for us when we lived in Germany, a Japanese sushi chef and his wife and another cousin’s partner, a Samoan named Mark. A lady from Yorkshire turned up, who lived just across the road, and another couple of neighbours, a Frenchman married to a Canadian with their three children. The Frenchman’s mother was visiting them from Le Havre. They shared a table with us which was quite convenient as the mother didn’t speak a word of English so we were able to chat and make her feel more comfortable.
All in all it was a great day which we enjoyed immensely. We arrived back home in the late afternoon in time to see the fireworks people set off on the beach. Spectacular!

 

[suzi]

Hi Bill,
Guess you won't be ignoring those pecular feelings again! Glad your ok after your hypo. For us Independance Day was spent at my husbands cousins BBQ, which he hosts every year. The stars and stripes flapped vigoursly all evening and then after much thunder and lightening, the heavens opened to torential rain. Luckily for us he's ex army and has acquired a few large tents over the years :wink: Even the rain didn't dampen our spirits, i rather over did the bacardi and diet cokes and sunday dinner didn't appear to late evening!
Look forward to your next installment as always,
Suzi x

 

[BillB]

Well done, Suzi. I hope the morning after wasn’t too bad, or at least, not so bad that a couple of pain killers wouldn't do the trick. My hypo is all over and done with, and that’s another set of symptoms I’ll be aware of. Shame about the pan seared scallops, though. They were delicious but I only managed to eat two.
Thought you might like to see our Farm House picture from the Mission Ranch. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

 

[BillB]

We trundled a couple of miles north the other day to have my daily exercise walk in Capitola, a pleasant little town just north of Aptos. We had a look at the shops then went onto the wharf, walked to the end to have a look at the restaurant there which had been recommended to us and took a stroll back. On solid ground again, my wife tripped on the kerb and fell on her camera, damaging her arthritic knee into the bargain. I helped her up and we rested while she recovered her composure and waited for her pain to subside. A young man with his wife stopped to ask if she was okay or if she needed help, which is typical of Americans, in our experience. We assured him that she was okay and just needed a few minutes to get herself together. We started off again, crossing the road on the way back to the car. Suddenly, a bird swooped down, hit me on the head and flew up to the roof of a shop, where it sat looking at me. Knowing that Hitchcock’s film The Birds was filmed not too far away, it made me think. Hitch, thou shouldst be living today.
On Tuesday, in need of some eggs I suggested that we went to the Glaum Egg Ranch. Not only are their eggs cheaper ($3 for 24 eggs), but they have a machine, as I have mentioned in my previous posts on California, that not only dispenses the eggs but gives you a show of a group of chickens singing ‘In the Mood’. We tapped Glaum Egg Ranch into our TomTom gps and set off. After a few minutes it occurred to us that we were being taken on an entirely different route to the one we remembered taking 5 months ago. After leading us through Watsonville and then into the back streets the gps announced that we had reached our destination. We found ourselves outside a smallish supermarket which bore a sign telling the world that it was an outlet for the Glaum Egg Ranch. In other words, they sold eggs. Resisting the impulse to throw the gadget out the window, I tapped in the road where the ranch is situated and allowed it to take us there – which it did unerringly.
The weather being so pleasant lately, we decided to take a drive down to Point Lobos where we had abandoned our photography trip a few weeks ago as it was so cold, foggy and downright miserable. The sun was shining when we arrived and we spent a very enjoyable morning walking along the clifftops and trying to take some memorable photographs. At one point we were looking down into a cove where a group of seals were dozing on a rock. Jackie noticed that a sea otter was lazily floating on his back between us and the seals, grooming himself and generally having a good time. After spending some time observing them, Jackie then noticed a whale spout several hundred yards offshore. In disbelief we watched the area for a couple of minutes, and then saw several more spouts and a flick of a tail. These must have been the laggards in the great migration northwards that the humpbacks make in summer.
We left Point Lobos around 12.30 to drive into Pacific Grove, one of the prettiest little towns on the coast. We parked the car and headed for the restaurant called Lattitudes, run by one of America’s most renowned chefs. The difference between Europe and America is most marked in this situation. I ordered one of the most expensive dishes on the menu, halibut with giant shrimp, which cost only $27. In Europe a similar meal in a celebrity chef’s restaurant would cost at least 3 times as much.
The bird life in this area is so varied. The first time we came, some years ago now, I was sitting outside on the terrace when I noticed what I took to be a large bug flitting from flower to flower. Then suddenly I realised from its movements that it wasn’t a beetle at all but a humming bird. I watched fascinated as it hovered, its long beak inserted into the depths of a blossom and its wings beating so fast that they were almost invisible. Our friends have a couple of feeders for these delicate little creatures (it’s my job to replenish the sugar water inside them regularly) and then enjoy their visits all day long.
Other birds that regularly pass by are flocks of pelicans, easily identified from their elegant flight patterns and pointed beaks. Many other types of birds, gorgeous plumage, are all over the place but we haven’t been able to identify them. A job for the coming few days, I think.

 

[Dennis]

Another evocative episode Bill. You make me so envious just reading your adventures and it brings back happy memories of many holidays in California. One day I intend go back because I would love to see the northern half of the state - and if possible drive all the way up Highway 101 (the Camino Real) from San Francisco to Crescent City, and from there follow the coast through Washington State right up to Seattle.

 

[BillB]

Ah, Dennis. Now you’re talking about something we didn’t quite get around to this time. The furthest we’ve been so far is Bodega Bay, which is worth a stop whenever you’re in the area. I had vague plans of driving up further this time, spending a few days on the trip, but it’s high season at the moment and the kids are on holiday, so we thought we might have problems finding the kind of accommodation we enjoy. I’m planning on doing it on our next visit – which could well be in April, though nothing’s written in stone at this point. I have to confess that no matter how many times we do it, I still get a big kick out of driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Yesterday we went up north of Half Moon Bay to an enjoyable little place called Princeton-by-the-sea. It’s a fishing village where you can buy fresh fish and shellfish straight off the boats. Practically all the restaurants serve seafood so we were in heaven. We finally settled on a place called Barbara’s Fishtrap which was a plain, no-nonsense kind of place that proclaimed “No dogs, no cellphones, no credit cards”. Sounded just like our kind of eatery so we went in and were lucky because by the time we’d ordered our meal and the wine had been served there was a line outside. The food was excellent and the price was even better - $40 for two with wine and coffee. You can’t knock that.
On the way back we stopped at Año Nuevo State Reserve which was a pretty good place to visit if you’re interested in beautiful scenery and wildlife. After that we drove down, stopping at the Pigeon Point lighthouse. Both of them were great photo locations and we both shot off a number of pics and I got to play with my newly-acquired circular polarising filter. The weather has turned warm so it was a brilliantly sunny day yesterday (and today). Good weather for snappers. It’s just a pity our friends’ car had an air conditioning breakdown just before they left so they didn’t have time to get it fixed. It’s been quite a few years since we had a car that didn’t have air-con and we’re missing it.
Now that they’ve finally planted Michael Jackson (or as near as) the TV news here is getting back to normal. It was incredible how the events of his death took over the news channels. There was no way any viewer could find out what was happening in the world between his demise and his lying in state. I expected President Obama to turn up. My wife and I dubbed CNN the MJ Channel. Every morning I switched on the TV, tuned to CNN and got – Michael Jackson. This went on day in, day out. The first few days I switched on, saw it was more on Jackson, flicked over to another channel then retried CNN 20 minutes later. It was still Jackson, so I gave up and took to watching the cooking channel. We could only keep up on world news by reading a couple of British newspapers online.
On the other hand, we have been doing quite a bit of reading instead of watching the box. One of the projects I’ve been carrying on with is catching up on the classics I missed out on throughout my working life. This time I picked up The Count of Monte Cristo at Border’s when we went to Los Gatos. Having had a crack at The Three Musketeers when I was in my early teens and gave up on it, I was expecting a hard slog but I was astonished at how readable it was. I finished it last week and closed the book regretfully. I’ll have to try some more of Dumas.
This evening we’ve invited the neighbours over for dinner. We’re returning the compliment after they invited us a few weeks ago. I’ve decided to serve pear and gorgonzola salad as a starter, followed by shrimps and scallops in a curry cream sauce accompanied by baby saffron potatoes, sugar snap peas and green asparagus. For dessert I’ve made a recipe that Hana posted on the food forum – sugar-free raspberry jelly mixed with raspberry yoghurt. I’ve added a few fresh raspberries and I’ll top it with a couple of dabs of whipped cream. I chose the menu as it was simple to cook and I can do most of the important bits before our guests arrive.
We are now on the downward slide – we shall be leaving in a week. We fly out on Tuesday, arriving at Heathrow on Wednesday morning. Then we transfer to Gatwick for the flight to Lux. Our friends will pick us up with Jackie’s new car – and air-con that works.

 

[BillB]

It’s arrived – our last full day! Tomorrow we catch the BA afternoon flight from San Francisco to Heathrow. Despite it being the end of our long break in Central California I’m looking forward to the flight as this time we’ve been assigned seats on the upper deck and we’ve never been up there before, not even for a sneaky peep, and all courtesy of air miles.
At the moment Jackie is doing a bit of a cleanup, after which I’ll get down to the important work – bringing the suitcases up from downstairs and thereafter doing as I’m told.
Our last week has been fairly eventful, though the weather has been variable, with the accent on fog and clouds. Most days the sun burns off the fog after 10 a.m. but sometimes it only burns it off in patches so we can be in the fog all day as we are close to the beach but a couple of hundred yards inland they are bathed in sunshine. It just seems to be a collection of interlinked micro-climates.
We finally managed to get on a boat safari in Elkhorn Slough (pronounced ‘slew’). I’m sure Suzi and Dennis will recognise the place as it’s situated next to the power station at Moss Landing, and you can see that for miles as its two chimney stacks are several hundred feet high.
A slough is a salt marsh, or wetlands, and Elkhorn is one of the biggest on the central coast with an immense variety of wildlife. We’d booked online in advance and boarded the boat in Moss Landing harbour. There were about 20 passengers and we were given a brief tour of the harbour to see the seals and some of the seabirds, such as pelicans and cormorants before passing under Highway 1 and entering the slough. Almost immediately we started seeing the wildlife for which it’s renowned – brown pelicans and the more rare white pelican, egrets, sanderlings, and then we came upon our first sea otters. Usually the otters live at sea among the kelp beds where their favourite shellfish are to be found, but these ones have been crafty enough to cotton on to the fact that the slough is shallower and warmer while the shellfish are just as abundant. They have an endearing habit of floating on their backs while banging a clam on a rock they balance on their stomachs until they can get at the flesh inside the shell. Another thing they’ve learned is that their fur is very, very dense, which keeps the cold out, but their paws are hairless and when they float on their backs having a snooze, they hold their paws up, as if surrendering, to reduce heat loss. We saw many groups of them as well as seals dozing on the banks.
The organizers even served coffee on board, a welcome treat as the weather was overcast and quite chilly. Our photos didn’t turn out as well as we hoped because of the general greyness, but on our next trip we’re hoping to do it again, with the sun shining.
We didn’t go for our usual beach walks this time as the kids were out of school and parking near a good walking beach was difficult to find. If our plans for an April trip come to pass we’ll be able to resume one of our favourite pastimes.
Friday evening saw us driving into Santa Cruz as we’d been invited to join one of our daughter in law’s stepfathers and his wife for dinner. It’s a complicated situation as her mother has been married three times and our d-i-l was adopted by each of her husbands in turn. I think we were dining with the second step father. We met up in a restaurant called Oswald’s which has a good reputation. I have to say that although the food was good, they also have a bar which was doing a lot of business with professional people winding down at the end of the week. This was very, very noisy. Why can young women no longer enjoy themselves without constantly screaming and shrieking? Or am I just going into grumpy old man mode?
On Saturday we drove down to Monterey to try a restaurant called Isabella’s. It’s owned by Tene Shake, one of America’s top chefs, who also owns Lattitudes (see above). The nice thing about Isabella’s is that wherever you sit you get a view of the harbour and it was great fun watching visitors embarking for the whale watching and glass bottomed boat cruises. It had always struck us on previous trips that Californians seemed to be more health conscious and the obese barrels of lard you see wobbling along in other parts of the States and in Europe were comparatively rare. Now that the vacationers are here that ratio has gone up considerably. On Fisherman’s Wharf we encountered a woman weighing well over 300 pounds, so fat that she had to be pushed around in a wheelchair. She was working her way through a bag of popcorn that was a good yard long. I can’t imagine being so gross that I have to be moved around on wheels. Still, as a diabetic low carber I take care that it’ll never happen. I’m no down to the lightest I’ve been since my national service.
On Sunday we invited our son and daughter in law to lunch. We decided on a barbecue as our son is a great barbecue fan, so we bought two racks of spare ribs, avocados and mangos for salads, large potatoes for jacket spuds, sour cream, chives, orange juice, etc., etc. About 11.30 a.m. he called and cried off as his wife was suffering from an upset stomach. We ate what we could and the unused stuff we’ll offer to the neighbours.
My next, and last, post will be after we arrive home to meet up with our friends who are staying on in Luxembourg for another week. I’ll try to sum up our experiences after getting them in some sort of perspective. Wish us bon voyage.

 

[BillB]

We are now home after a journey that went smoothly and was on time all the way from San Francisco to Heathrow, transfer to Gatwick and then Gatwick to Luxembourg. Our friends were waiting at the airport and we were having a cup of tea at home 30 minutes later.
The bad news is that we didn’t travel on the upper deck, something I had been looking forward to ever since we were assigned the seats back in February. :cry:
The good news is that we were upgraded to first class - the first time in my life I‘ve ever been upgraded. I don’t know how many of the forum’s members have ever flown long haul in first class, but I can only say that it will spoil you for any other class of travel for the rest of your life. You will never, ever again want to turn right as you board. Just to satisfy the curiosity of any of my fellow diabetics let me describe a few of the advantages. We had already upgraded to Club by using our air miles and as Silver Card holders in the Executive Club we were entitled to use the airport lounge which opens directly onto the boarding jetway. At that point we had to hand in our boarding cards before we were allowed to board. The young lady tapped our seat numbers into the computer, then looked somewhat puzzled and tapped it in again. Then she tapped in our names, studied the screen for a few seconds before crossing out the allotted seat numbers and writing in two new ones. I was quite disappointed, to put it mildly and asked why our seats had been changed. She smiled enigmatically and said, “Just enjoy the seats, sir.” Feeling a bit miffed, I watched my wife pick up the tickets and I followed her toward the aircraft. Muttering darkly about last-minute seat changes, I got to the aircraft door where we were greeted with smiles and conducted by a steward through the Club cabin to the first class cabin to row 5. Only at that point did I realize that we had been upgraded, and very handsomely so.
The steward took our jackets and hung them up for us in a locker in the front of the cabin – the pointed bit of the aircraft. We placed our carry-on bags in the overhead lockers and settled down in the luxurious, leather seats. We had a partition between us with a glass segment that could be raised and lowered, as well as a large table each which lowered into the partition, as did a TV screen. If we stretched our legs out there was a footrest which carried our duvets and mattresses (!).
The steward, a young Frenchman named Thierry, returned and asked if we would like a glass of champagne. He even addressed me by name.
After the champagne and after takeoff, the steward arrived again with a menu and a wine list. We perused the menu, the steward took down our choices and asked what time we would like to have dinner. We said 7 p.m. would be nice and off he went. I settled down to watch an interesting documentary on the Hubble space telescope. About 30 minutes before dinnertime he arrived again and asked if we would like an aperitif – silly question, really, and I was offered a choice of malt whiskies. By the time I had finished my drink he came again to swivel our tables down, lay a linen tablecloth on it, then lay the silver. What a contrast to the times I had sat squashed in my seat at the back with plastic knives and forks, elbows pressed into my sides, apologising regularly to my neighbor.
For the first course I had prawn salad with lemon dressing, followed by seared halibut, a delightfully low, low, carb meal, which allowed me to take a dessert. This was followed by decaffeinated coffee. Afterwards Thierry cleared the table, (we even had our own personal salt and pepper mills) and I read for a while, intending to watch a film before sleeping, but after a few pages I began to yawn and decided I would sleep straight away. A stewardess arrived with a sleeping suit in BA colours, so I went into the toilet and changed. The stewardess took my clothes, put them on a hanger and hung them in the locker. Getting back to my seat I discovered that Thierry had reclined my seat to the full flat position, had laid a mattress over it, and laid the duvet on top.
I slept solidly for 5 hours, read in bed for a while, then asked for my clothes and went into the washroom to freshen up and get dressed. Thierry arrived to ask what I would like for breakfast. I settled on the full English, with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, tomato and baked beans, with a pot of tea.
The remainder of the flight passed in similarly pleasant manner and all too soon it was announced that we had begun our descent. That was a pity as I could have endured a lot more of this type of luxury. And when we landed, the poor people at the rear were held up while we disembarked. :twisted:
Now if only we could afford this every time we flew…..
But there’s a dilemma that comes with flying first class – the comfort of being able to stretch out full length and sleep is very seductive, but while you’re sleeping you’re missing out on the luxury of the service and of your surroundings. Do you stay awake and enjoy it, or make use of the very comfortable sleeping facilities? Whichever you choose, you’re missing out on the other. Ah, me.
Our friends Claire and Terry, who had spent the interim in our house, had been enjoying themselves, scooting all over Europe. They had been to Bruges, Trier, Alsace, the Rhine, Reims and the Champagne country, Saarburg, and sundry points north, south, east and west. Terry, another Type 2 diabetic, made the most of the facilities around our home to go for a swim on most days when they were in Luxembourg.

 

[viv1969]

Ah Bill, I have just spent the first part of the morning reading of your escapades, and being reminded of all the wonderful times I've spent in that region of California. I think if we were ever to relocate it would be to that section of coast between Maonterey and SF...possibly around the Half Moon Bay area. There's a 'pub' in Monterey (Alvarado Street)called The Mucky Duck that used to be a favourite haunt of ours, although on our last visit the quality and ambience of the place has slipped a little, which was disappointing. I believe it has since changed it's name to The Britannia Arms.

Time for me to go look at photograph albums........

 

[BillB]

Hi there, Viv. That makes four of us now on this forum who have spent time in this wonderful area. We’ll have to set up a club – California Dreamers, perhaps.
I had started a reply to you a couple of days ago and had almost finished it when the computer gave a hiccup and all my hard work vanished into cyberspace. It happens so often when I’m writing on the forum itself – usually I write my contributions in MS Word, then copy and paste, which is what I’m doing now.
The name you mentioned, The Mucky Duck, rang a bell with me but I couldn’t place it, nor The Britannia Arms. I must have been walking around Monterey with my eyes closed.
We love Half Moon Bay, and always stop there for a coffee when we drive up to SF. Just north of there is the lovely little fishing village of Preston. Great seafood restaurants.
The good news is that our friends, Terry and Claire, are definitely going to Sidney in April for a couple of months, so guess who’s going to be taking care of the house and the cat again? No dates set yet, but it’s definitely on, all being well.
Last Wednesday, Claire and Terry were due to fly out of Paris for Boston so we decided to take the TGV, the High Speed Train, spend a couple of days there, then they’d depart for the US and we’d take the TGV home. Amazingly, the first class one-way fare is only €45 when you’re as ancient and decrepit as I am and it’s fantastic value for money. Claire and Terry had never travelled on the TGV before and were quite impressed by the comfort, the speed, the punctuality and the cleanliness. For us it was our second time so we knew what to expect, and since we’ve discovered a lovely little hotel near the Eiffel Tower, we’ll be spending more time in Paris in the future.
On Monday afternoon, after we’d checked into our hotel, Claire, Jackie and I took a stroll along the Seine to the pier at the Tower. We booked ourselves onto a tourist cruise and had a great time. That evening we had dinner at a restaurant just down the road from our hotel called the Cafe Central which was an unassuming place that served excellent food. Ater dinner we strolled to the Pont Alexandre from which watched the light show on the Eiffel Tower that begins at 10 p.m. and lasts five minutes. I takes place every hour after that.
The next morning we split up for the day as Claire and Terry had booked tickets online for the art museum at the Gare d’Orsay. We took a taxi to the Sacré Coeur, a place Jackie has been wanting to visit for some years. The basilica itself is a striking edifice with an austere interior, but our greatest surprise was to find behind the church an area of shops, restaurants, cafés and artists’ stalls. We wandered happily around, had a coffee at a pavement café, shot off dozens of pics and finally settled for a mushroom omelette for lunch. We got back to the hotel in mid-afternoon, pleasantly exhausted and collapsed on the bed for a while.
Terry and Claire, it turned out, had had some kind of mixup with the tickets and ended up not visiting the art museum. They spent a couple of hours searching for the FNAC store on the Champs Elysées where they should have picked up their tickets, but got confusing instructions from the website they had ordered the tickets from. We had dinner together at a great restaurant near the hotel called Leo le Lion, which is typical of so many Parisian restaurants in that it serves high quality food at reasonable prices. You just have to know which ones to visit.
The next morning we saw Claire and Terry off in a taxi as they headed off to Charles de Gaulle Airport. We had time to kill as our train departed at 4 p.m. so we headed for the Montparnasse Tower, the tallest building in Paris and in which, for €10 each you can take the high speed lift to the top. You get a very impressive 360° view of Paris when you get up there.
A little before 4 p.m. we turned up at the Gare de l’Est, from which our train departed dead on time. Our journey back to Luxembourg was smooth and comfortable. A good 38 quidsworth, if I do say so myself.

 

[BillB]

Looking back over the 18 weeks we’ve spent in Central California since October 2008 there are a lot of good things to say about travelling there if you’re diabetic. The supermarkets carry a wide range of sugar-free or low carb products including, astonishingly, maple syrup. I hasten to add there’s very little maple syrup in it, but some makes have a fairly accurate taste of the real thing. Low fat and low sodium alternatives are available for many products, and the range of vegetables is often wider than we are used to in Europe: many kinds of squash, Mexican vegetables which I have to find out how to prepare as well as all the old favourites.
Restaurants are no problem for diabetics as many specialise in fish and seafood with an additional selection of meat products. Mexican restaurants abound, as you would expect in a state where many migrant workers come from Mexico. I found that if I chose carefully, sticking to only one taco or enchilada, and choosing salad and chickpeas or frijoles (refried beans), my BGs stayed within reasonable levels.
The meat on sale is very high quality, and meltingly tender when cooked. We were never sold a tough piece of meat. I bought one beautiful piece of beef for cooking on the barbecue. It was perfectly marbled with small veins of fat that melted away during the cooking and left just the delicious flavour of beef. I rubbed it all over with spicy Creole seasoning and cooked it slowly on the bbq until it was cooked to our taste of rare. Not only did it serve us for dinner, but we had it cold with horseradish the next day and in sandwiches the day after. I paid $6.50 for it at Safeway.
Which brings us to bread – a total disaster for Europeans as American bread is so sweet that it tastes very unpleasant to those of us used to fresh, crusty loaves and rolls. As a low carber I keep my consumption of bread and pastry down, but I do like a slice with my eggs at breakfast. If you’re lucky you’ll find an independent bakery nearby which sells bread more to your taste but if not we found the next best was multigrain sourdough bread.
Chocolate with a high cocoa content (70 to 85%) can be found almost anywhere, and sugar-free sweets are easy to find as well. They also tell you which ones use sweeteners such as Splenda and which ones will get you on the old sorbitol quickstep. Most pharmacies have a good selection and I can smugly state that I can make 1 packet of crunchy sweets last for more than a week.
It is now definite that Claire and Terry will be off to Australia in April for two months so when we get back from New England we’ll have to start saving.
I hope I haven’t bored too many people on this thread. If I have, then I apologise. If you’ve enjoyed my ramblings, then I can only say thank you.

 

[suzi]

Hi Bill,
You never bore me, though you have a habit of making me drool over my keyboard. I'm looking forward to going back to California next year, and it will be Andrews 1st visit as a T1 diabetic, it's heartening to know that they cater for diabetics, and if i remember rightly they are also very good at catering for coeliacs as well. I remember reading menus with "suitable for gluten free", but never taking much notice, i will this time.
We're half way through our school summer holidays, had a 6 day spell in England, taking in Lichfield, York and Blackpool, the later leaving us completely skint! But we had a wonderful time in the rain and seen all the sights. Though hubby is still complaining it would have been cheaper to go abroad.
Take care, Suzi x