That windy little beach

Do you recall that windy little beach we walked along? That afternoon in Fall

Do you recall that windy little beach we walked along?

The skies were clear the next day so we took advantage of the sunny weather to head over to Santa Monica for my first experience of a California beach. We parked up and had a bimble down to the beach and along the pier. The beach was relatively quiet as we got to the outdoor gym that marked the site of the original Muscle Beach. There were a couple of shirtless guys exercising so we sat and watched for a little while, as you do. I had my camera over my shoulder, the zoom extended fully. The button may have been “accidentally” pressed a couple of times resulting in me inadvertently ending up with a few photos of the guys exercising. 

After the beach, pier and lunch we walked through the main shopping street and Chris, Josh and I pointed out various things that caught our eye, both men and clothes. We found a toyshop and Josh asked if we could have a quick look in. The place had an amazing selection of board games and it suddenly occurred to me that they might have Spot it!, the game I had been introduced to and had so much playing with Rhett and Mama T back in Nashville. I asked the shop girl if they had it. She said it sounded familiar and took me to the section where all the card games were. They had it! I was so excited. I was like a kid in a toyshop and I couldn’t wait to get home for a game.

Our journey back was via Trader Joe’s. Chris said that he would cook dinner for us so all I needed to do was grab some wine while he picked up the things needed for dinner. They had some wine for $1.99 a bottle. I thought it must have been some sort of mistake but Josh assured me that it was the right price and the wine was drinkable, if not an amazing quality. I picked up a couple of bottles figuring that if I drank the whole of the first bottle then the second would taste fine regardless. As I waited for Josh and Chris to finish up the food shopping I made a reference on Facebook about my purchase. It prompted a flurry of responses from a number of my American friends that I was obviously drinking “Two Buck Chuck”. I couldn’t believe that my American friends hadn’t pointed this bargain tipple to me earlier.

Once we were back I cracked open my first bottle of Two Buck Chuck. I’m not a massive wine expert (unless expertise can be measured by volume of wine consumed) but I found it a decent drink. I have certainly paid a lot more for a lot worse. I had made a good dent in the first bottle by the time Martin, a friend of Chris and Josh, joined us for dinner. After dinner I cracked open Spot It! and we played a few rounds. Everyone got very competitive. From there I was introduced to a game I had never heard of called Apples to Apples. I’m still not 100% sure how to actually play it but I seemed to do ok. Our final game for the evening was Cluedo/Clue. We had been playing for a little while (I had worked out that Miss Scarlett was the killer) when I showed Josh my Ballroom. He looked down at his paper, then asked me to show him again. I did. At that point he said something had gone wrong and showed me his Ballroom. Somehow there were two cards for it so we decided to call it a day on the board games. It had been a great evening. I had not had a night in playing board games for ages.

That afternoon in Fall

The following day the weather was horrendous. Heavy rain fell for most of the day. Josh gave me a couple of options for indoor things that we could go and do but I told him I was more than happy to have a day in doing nothing more than watching tv & playing on the Wii. We spent the entire day doing just that as well as chatting. The things I took from the day are:

1) I suck at Marioland on the Wii. I kept getting killed leaving Josh on his own to finish off the level. A couple of times I got bored and pushed Josh off the platform killing him;

2) I can sound very convincing when talking b*llocks. We got chatting about childhood television programmes at one point and I showed Josh the infamous Rainbow clip convincing him that it was genuine children’s television. I did eventually point out it was a spoof episode done for their Christmas party and was never shown on tv;

3) YouTube has changed the nature of conversations. Now you don’t have to describe something in great detail as you can probably find it on YouTube in some form or another.

My final day with Josh he took me to Hollywood. I had yet to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was a little disappointing and wasn’t like how I had imagined it. I was expecting it to look as sleek and glossy as it does on the Oscar coverage but it was a little grotty. I did get a photo of the star for Julie Andrews though so I was happy. I was going to put Dean down on it for a picture but it was just so busy I was scared he would get squished. We had lunch at a place called Johnny Rockets and were joined by Josh’s best friend, Danielle. For reasons I never found out her nickname was Junebug. I was introduced as Hairy Poppins. The two of them chatted loads and I could barely get a word in edgeways. I sat watching them, the close friendship between them was obvious. It made me smile as it reminded me that soon I would see a couple of my good friends from back home.  After lunch we headed up to the Hollywood hills so I could get a closer look of the sign before we made our way back to the house for a chilled evening.

The next morning Josh was up early to drop me back at Van Nuys so that I could get the bus back to LAX were I was meeting up with a couple of friends, Sarah and Sara (not a lesbian couple). They were friends from back home who were here on holiday and we were going to spend a few days in San Diego together. I hadn't seen them since the end of May when we had all gone up to Suffolk for a wedding of another friend, Jess. I couldn't wait to see them, catch up on all the gossip and do a bit of a road trip from Los Angeles to San Diego. The bus dropped me off at the airport and I texted them to let them know where I was waiting.

“Do you recall that windy little beach we walked along? That afternoon in Fall” 
Lyrics from Song on the Sand from the musical La Cage Aux Folles