Poppy, Sheila and no, we are still not Australians!

Poppy and Sheila arrived. Mark drove to the airport and I stayed as my mini isn’t big enough for the luggage too.

It was wonderful to see them and emotional. We got straight in the pool and in my haste to get the heat right for the spa, I managed to turn the wrong lever in the pool house. After ½ hour Poppy commented on the height of the water, which had started to lap over the side. I panicked and rushed up to the pool house which is next to the spa, only to find that the water had drained out of it. The lever diverted the spa water to the pool. Luckily, we just turned the lever the other way and it diverted back.

Lulu’s swimming is improving day by day and she loves the pool and being in with us.

The next day, after a bit of shopping, we were back in the pool, playing ball with Lulu. This time it was Mark’s turn to muck up and he turned on the fountain lever by mistake. This meant that the waterfall feature which was set into the garden slope and hadn’t been used for years by the look of it, started pumping water into the spa, which went from a beautiful clear pool to black and muddy with floating grass within minutes. Mark had to spend the next 2 hours trying to clear it.

On the Sunday we went to the Sagebrush Cantina restaurant which is touristy but we love the Mariachi band there. We also then went onto Leonis Adobe Museum, the oldest building in Calabasas.

The next garden mishap was a burst pipe on the garden slope which shot into the sky 10 feet high, unfortunately going over to next doors patio too. The landlord turned off the water and disaster was averted.

It was so wonderfully bright and sunny that when I set up my fish Set fountain, the pump, which usually dribbled into the bowl in front of it, shot the water across the patio – I may need a bigger bowl. 😊

We went the wonderful Santa Monica Pier the next day and after the obligatory arcade and pier walk, we went to the end, where there were loads of people fishing, catching what looked like sardines. There was a sealion swimming up and down at the end of the pier, I suppose waiting for food in the fish thrown back in. We tried out a different restaurant that had crabs and lobsters in tanks, which I’m really not keen on, but the fish was wonderfully fresh.

I’m afraid as I normally say in my blog, the traffic was unbelievably awful and we crawled home on the 405 and 101, a 45 minute journey turning into over 2 hours to get home!!!

That evening Poppy and I signed up to try the local Pottery place – Bitter Root. We thought there would be a rush on, so we got there an hour early. As it was, there was only 4 of us.

The young lady taking the class was a university art graduate in ceramics called Katie and was so welcoming. We sat on wheels that faced each other and we all threw pots. It was such good fun. The setting is a little more commercial than Berman, but it was very friendly and the other people there who were members seemed lovely too. The beauty of the membership there is that you can go anytime and some members go every day. I could make a whole dinner service……

When we finished we went to Joeys for a couple of cocktails and had chat with the waiter, who asked us if we were Australian. He knew this as his dad was Australian.

On Tuesday we set off on the 101 in an Uber. Again, the driver thought we were from

Australia.

Our destination was the California Science Centre which is set in a large area of LA along side the Natural History Museum and the soon to be completed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. It’s an amazing space and I think you’d need days to do it all.

We saw the Dogs Science Tail exhibition, which showed everything about dogs. It was really fun.

The 3D movie we saw in the imax centre was incredibly moving. It was about service dogs and how they are trained. It followed a puppy who was the runt of the litter being trained to find people after earthquakes and disasters. It also showed dogs who rescued people from water, snow rescue dogs and even dogs which recognise anxiety. We all had tears. moving

We had another talkative uber driver on the way home, asking loads of questions about being a Brit. I’m putting Poppy in the front next time.

I was officially taken into the choir that evening and they sang ‘We are family’ to me and then lined up to hug me, one by one – all rather embarrassing actually, but lovely too.

Wednesday was Poppy’s Birthday. Popz, Jen and Mark went off to s 12

Universal studios, while I went to Berman pottery, as I only had 2 classes left.

e beautiful Carbon Beach Club restaurant which was right on the beach with glass panels. The waves were so loud, crashing on the beach and we watched the sunset. It was such a beautiful setting. The food was wonderful as were the champagne and cocktails. Poppy had ‘Thanks a Bunch’ and I had ‘East Side’ a wonderful gin cocktail.

Huge shrimp cocktail. Fish

Cocktails, champagne

Thanks a bunch and east side (gin)

Thurs

Westfield shopping

In awe of good court. Had vegan again

Maybe try and be vegan

The next day, we decided to stay local and in the evening we drank wine and had a go at a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that I had bought, showing the covers of Sci Fi books. I never normally do jigsaws, but it was great fun and became quite competitive, with finding pieces. We finished it in one evening. On the strength of that, I then bought a 3000 Jigsaw puzzle, which was ridiculous as we started the outside, but after an evening of just sorting the colours, we decided it wasn’t really our thing.

On Saturday evening we went to the Write Off Room again and it was fantastic. The music is so great with a mixture of blues and rock. As before, the audience seemed to appear on stage to play, as well as all the people dancing. No one seemed to care what they looked like and I can tell you that there were some very weird moves. The piano player was especially good with boogie woogie piano. So many people were wearing hats, I must wear one next time.

Sunday was a trip to Oxnard again and the farmers market. This time as it was father’s day there was a Vintage Car show with the most amazing American cars all lovingly restored. They were lined up along the waterfront. It was such a beautiful setting. The cars ranged from Corvettes, to Mustangs and Chevrolets with such interesting owners.

The following day we went to Malibu and visited the Getty Villa, which was donated by J. Paul Getty to the city of LA. It’s an amazing place, set high on the Malibu hillside, with artefacts from Italy and Greece and beautiful gardens with herbs and plants that smelt beautiful in the heat.

Getty had designed the building to be architecturally the same as Herculaneum. The ceramics and statues are wonderful and inspirational. It is an incredible collection and you can almost forgive him, as I’m not sure he was a very nice man. There is the story of his grandson being kidnapped and him not wanting to pay the ransom. That being said, he did donate the museum and the cost of running it free to Los Angeles and the only thing you pay to go, is the parking.

On Tuesday we took another uber to the Hollywood Boulevard with a guy named William from Missouri. I stupidly sat in the front again and had the same conversation about being a Brit. William told a story about going to London and meeting someone who offered him a cigarette and said ‘do you want to suck on a fag?’, somewhat of an embarrassing story to be told in a taxi for sure. We talked for a full hour😳😳

I made Popz sit in the front on the return journey. So typical, Jin the driver didn’t say a word to her all the way home!

Hollywood Boulevard as usual is a street with stars on the pavement and is smelly, dirty and filled with actors dressed up in slightly grimy film costumes (Chewbacca was especially dirty). Its somewhat tacky, but Popz wanted to see it. The nicest parts are the newish 4 story high shopping centre, with huge elephants on pedestals, where you can stand on a walkway overlooking the Hollywood sign and of course the cinemas Captain’s Theatre and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre which has changed some of it’s hand prints from the front to also have the latest stars, such as Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Hugh Jackman, which I was especially happy to see. 😊

We went to Dave and Busters which is a restaurant which has American style food with a large arcade in it – great fun. Poppy made me go into one which was horror themed. It was a 4D experience. It was so bad/good I had to close my eyes. It even had shots of air which was supposed to be breath – really horrible.

Choir that night was lovely and all my practice paid off, as I remembered the words and the majority of the notes - lol. We had sing offs, which is when the four harmony parts line up opposite each other and then the four facing each other start to sing part of the song, until Monica says next, then you turn to right and join the back of the queue. It’s a nerve-racking process. The first song was a barbershop version of ‘You are my Sunshine’ and the last part has a difficult change of key. I had worked out that I had the section before that and said that to Elaine who was behind me, obviously realising that she had the difficult bit. I was happy, until an older lady who had been sitting down leapt up and went in front of me. Elaine tapped me on the shoulder and had a good laugh. As it was I managed it and they seemed pleased, thank goodness.

At IHOP they following morning Popz, Sheila and I ate more food than was humanly possible and all felt somewhat sick. Still, gotta love pancakes!

Wednesday was the last pottery at Berman. I could lie and tell you that this last time the traffic was unbelievably clear, but no, with the heat everyone comes out in their cars and the 101 was ridiculously packed there and back. I am so relieved I don’t have to do that again… oh wait I have to pick up my final pieces – damn!

So after struggling back from North Hollywood, Lily, Mark’s driver took us back in the same traffic to the Hollywood Bowl. It was 1/2 hr extra just to get in, once we got there. There were four4 traffic cops in the middle of a huge junction of 6+ lanes with cars being waved left and right. They got it wrong a few times with cars stuck in the middle with- quite a bit of shouting. Interesting to watch for sure. 😊

The Hollywood Bowl is an amazing place with a magical atmosphere. Its huge!!!! The stage has a backdrop of the Hollywood hills and we sat and watched the sunset with our tacos and carafes of wine. We had a chat with the people behind us who thought we were Australian (again!)

Andrea Bocelli was incredible. The sound was wonderful and made the hairs stand up on my arms. There were 2 ladies who sang with him, one of which sounded just like Celine Dion. In fact, she sang one of my favourite Celine songs ‘Think Twice’, but it was a bit out of place amongst the classic operatic songs.

My favourites of evening were ‘Con Te Partirò’ and unbelievably ‘My Way’ with Jamie Fox- who had come on for just that song and had a really good voice, though obviously no- where near as good as Andrea..

While Popz and Sheila were here I applied for a voluntary position at the local dog sanctuary/pound. I was excited by the prospect and am going to their orientation session on June 30th, but on the application it mentions their euthanasia policy which says, ‘there are instances when an animal must be humanely euthanized due to space, medical or behavioural issues’. I’m feeling a little unsure now. Plus I got chatting to a girl on a walk with Lulu about her school and its made me think I should be enquiring about voluntary positions there. Decisions, decisions!

Popz and Sheila’s last day was just packing and lazing around, which was very welcome after the fun filled 2 weeks.

Mark had left for Germany at lunchtime, so we arranged Poppy and Sheila to go to the airport in the taxi.

All I can say is that I will miss them and I really hate goodbyes.