Anzac DayWhen we went to bed last night, it was around the time for Australians to get up and go to the dawn service on the other side of the world. And we thought of you all down there, in the cool of the autumn morning, and wished we could be there for this day of days.
David and I both had grandfathers at Gallipoli, and in Perth, David has worn his grandad's medals on the day.
In San Diego, the Royal Australian Navy observes Anzac Day with a well-attended service on the USS Midway. This is a de-commissioned aircraft carrier that is now permanently docked in the bay at San Diego. It's so enormous that standing on the foredeck for this service was like being four or five storeys up.It was a short but moving ceremony, with all the traditional components, attended by lots of US and Australian military and brass, and the odd New Zealander. We even had a highly-decorated US rear admiral, who gave the reading.
By coincidence, two huge (and loud) US Navy helicopters provided the fly-past, just at the perfect moment after the Last Post. We sang along to recordings of the national anthems of Australia, New Zealand and the US, and I was a little sad that our recording of Advance Australia Fair was the same maudlin Julie Anthony version that gets trotted out and played in at the MCG every September for the footy Grand Final. Honest.
But that's by the by. After the ceremony, everyone retired to the Bondi where we put on a barbecue lunch — with real pavlova for dessert — that's still going strong at almost 6pm, David tells me!

Guest list
I'm so excited: Lily is coming home for a long weekend. She rang me on Tuesday with news of a dead computer, a lost phone charger, a lost wallet, and finally a badly burnt arm, sustained while she was making pancakes. So I told her that she needed to come home to the sunshine and let me feed her soup and tuck her up in her bed after a night in front of the telly. She sadly said that sounded wonderful, so we decided to surprise her.
I have so many frequent flyer points after my two trips to Oz and back that we rang Alaska Airlines straight away and in five minutes had her booked on a plane home. She gets in just before midnight tonight and leaves late on Monday night. Yay!

:: David's brother, Jeff, their sister, Heather, and her husband, Peter, have just arrived in town. We went to LA airport to meet them very early on Wednesday morning and, to keep them awake so they could stave off jetlag, we drove them to Hollywood ...... stopped for coffee at Mel's on Sunset Boulevard (below, you can see Heath at the entrance and Jeff doing his best not to fall asleep across the bonnet of my car) ...... then drove them along the coast through Orange County, stopping at beautiful San Clemente for lunch in the sunshine ... ... before we finally let them stumble off to their hotel in downtown San Diego in the mid-afternoon.
Lily's thrilled that her weekend home will coincide with a visit from her uncles and auntie, and dinner at the Bondi and brekkie at the Del.
Will is hoping Jeff, who's been a bit of a cricket star in his day, will find time for a game of cricket at the park. This is getting pretty serious now. Will's mates come round after school for a couple of hours on the local oval soccer pitch, and they have bought gloves, balls and pads online.

:: Next week, my cousin, Duncan, and his wife, Amy, will come to stay for a few days. They live on Vancouver Island, Canada, and are driving down the west coast of the US on their way to New Mexico, stopping with us in San Diego before the big turn left and inland. So there'll be even more dinner at the Bondi and brekkie at the Del. Love it!

Sea-legging it
Last night, David and I were invited to a reception on board the Australian Navy ship, HMAS Sydney (pic above pinched from the RAN website - sorry, guys!). It was a fab little affair, with drinks and canapes and a great and very funny welcoming speech by the commanding officer in whch he equated his ship - a 134-metre-long guided missile frigate with a crew of about 220 - to a sort of blokey souped-up ute with a great big engine and some really fun weaponry.
The officers were all in their formal blues, having left their hats here ...

... which fascinated me. I guess that left both hands free to hold their beers! There were lots of women officers, which was good to see, and the CO explained that the ship was supposed to come with two helicopters, and he'd asked for them, but the navy had given them a band instead. So they put on a special ceremony just for us ...

... with swords, marching, drumrolls and a gun salute, to strike the White Ensign and announce sunset. Then we all sang Advance Australia Fair, with tears in our eyes, followed by the US anthem. The diminutive woman standing at the microphone on the far right of the pic above is the Sydney's gunnery officer - you can just see (if you click for a bigger image) all the gold on the end of her sleeves.
I found a young officer to show me where the loo was, and he took me halfway to the pointy end of the ship, led me inside the washroom and showed me the actual cubicle. I almost expected him to put the seat down for me. Then, once I emerged, he cheerfully led me back to the party. Such a gent!

:: It was all over at 8pm, so David and I hastened back to the Bondi to join our regular team, the Space Bars, for the quiz night. And one of our team members was a very polite young lad from Ohio, Daniel, who is a enlisted man on the USS Princeton ...

... (pic pinched from the US Navy website - sorry guys!). This is a slightly bigger (40 m or so) ship than the Sydney, a guided missile cruiser with about 600 on board. Daniel has been with our team for two weeks, but the Princeton sails soon, so we'll have to wait for him to get back to San Diego.

:: Thanksgiving tomorrow!

(Disneyland jack-o'-lanterns)

One more sleep!

:: All the fabulous kids young people who work at the Bondi have really got into the mood of the week, with no-holds-barred decorations ...

... and lots of worrying about costumes, and tongues wedged firmly in cheeks.

:: I, meanwhile, have been concentrating on knitting for all the Bondi babies. The first to appear was the very beautiful Aivry (I think that's how she spells it), who is the daughter of two very good friends of the Bondi, though they don't actually work there. Kirsten and Andy are both surfers, and both Australians who call San Diego home. But I'm counting Aivry as a Bondi baby anyway, and this is one of her socks:


:: Eric Clapton's autobiography is number one in the LA Times' non-fiction best seller list, and number two in the NY Times'. And there's an audio book of it, read by the lovely Bill Nighy, whom I've loved since seeing him play the ageing pop star in Love Actually.

It's so tempting to explore the whole audio book universe - especially as I'm such a slow reader. Will is listening to George Orwell's 1984 before he goes to sleep, and, not much of a reader, he said he really enjoyed reading the book along with the CD. I'm so ecstatic that he's doing this, and almost off his own bat, too - I think he said a lot of Radiohead lyrics were inspired by 1984. L-o-v-e that band. We are now gently suggesting he go on to read Animal Farm, a copy of which we just happen to have quietly put in the bookcase. Ssssh.
Following the text while class members took it in turns to read out loud was always the way we read the books we had to spoil study in Eng. lit. back in school, though that was in the dim, dim past and may no longer be acceptable.

(More pumpkins at Disneyland)

:: The power of Oprah indeed: since she named Love in the Time of Cholera as her book club pick for October, it has been on sale everywhere, even in the supermarket, alongside all the Nora Robertses and whatsisname Grishams. And last weekend, I saw it was number one in the NY Times' (paperback trade) fiction best seller list and the LA Times' as well.

Naturalisation

The three of us stood in the kitchen last night and each of us had a real American experience to boast about.
Dave had bought three beautiful cobs of sweetcorn to have with dinner; Will had just come downstairs having had cookies (Oreos) and milk; and I had had to stop driving in the street near home that afternoon behind a big yellow school bus, with all its red lights flashing, stop signs winging, and children running everywhere — my first time!

Mystery ...

This is the country that has given the world the car, Seinfeld, a man or two on the moon, the iPod and the breakfast burrito.

So how come it still clings to the arcane, cumbersome and just plain ridiculous imperial system?

Dave has red-wine stains all over a white shirt, and the directions for the pre-wash stain remover suggest making a paste by adding 'one scoop to 16 oz' of water, or a soaking solution by mixing 'two scoops in one gallon'. So I get my bucket, and it's marked off in 'quarts'.

Why have they put up with such silliness for so long?

Even Mexico - even Canada! - is metric the instant you're across the border.

Come to the barbie!

This week, Bondi has been involved with Wine Australia in a big event publicising and promoting Australian wines.
We've had special-menu wine dinners on four nights - another one tonight - and yesterday we had a big barbie at the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center (spelling and ampersand correct), on the ground floor of the Harbor Club Towers on Martin Luther King Walk, in what is the prettiest part of the downtown area, right across the trolley tracks from the massive convention centre.

Above: Dave, exec-chef supreme (and father-to-be in September) Chris Behre and I at one of the barbecue stands.

:: While Bondi managed the barbies outside, indoors there were tasting tables and lots of Australian people pouring lots of gorgeous Aussie wines - including fab WA labels like Plantagenet, Leeuwin Estate, Howard Park/Mad Fish, Cullens and Houghtons.
Outside, Bondi super-chefs Chris and Rhy served up plates of extremely tasty morsels like spicy shrimp (we'd call them prawns, but ... you know!), lamb cutlets and homemade sausages, with plenty of salads. there were several hundred people there, and lots of them sauntered over to the Bondi as the sun set, for free beer and dinner. A fab day all round.


Above: Our other chef supremo, Rhy Waddington (left), and 'helper' Mike Cameron manned the second barbecue stand. Mike is one of the three Bondi founders, with Julian and David. But he's a fantastic cook and loves to pitch in.
The whole event was like a sensational afternoon party, with wonderful food, wine and company. You can see the red trolley wizzing past - it does a big loop of the city and goes to Old Town, the Mexican border, and out to Fashion Valley and the big Qualcomm football arena. It's essential public transport on big event days at Qualcomm, where they also hold big rock concerts, and at Petco Park, the baseball park that's just a couple of blocks from Bondi, and four from here.

Above: Rhy and Mike in a rare down-tool moment. Note the size of the convention centre in the background - and this is only about a quarter of it.

Above: A big crowd mulled around the barbies, and there were wine-tastings inside, to the right of this pic.

Above: Me with two of our newest, dearest friends, Karen and Warren Allan. Warren is from Queensland, as you could probably tell from his T-shirt, and is in the yacht business. He first came to San Diego for the America's Cup. Karen is a southern gal, from Louisiana. They both l-o-v-e Bondi, and it's rare to turn up on the weekend and not find them there!

Getting warmer ...

:: Spring begins officially here on March 21 and the weather is just perfect. It was about 32 (C) yesterday, and today it's a beautiful 28. Yummy. Every day the sun gets a little higher and reaches more of the pool. With its dark surfaces, it starts to warm up very quickly - so every day I stick a toe in to check whether it's ready for a plunge! (Not quite - but it sure feels good.)

:: I like setting things against the pool, so here's a bowl of avocados and passionfruit that were a gift from a wonderful couple we met yesterday, Kevin and Betsy. Kevin is a former Quairading lad, and Betsy his San Diego-born wife.

They live in a beautiful region to the south-east, in the hills at Ramona, where they have started an Australian plant nursery and wholesale business. Dave and I went to check it out with a view to getting them to provide wildflowers and plants for the Bondi.
This (below) is a view of their property. They have about 5 hectares, with about a third of it under cultivation and the rest being prepared. Kevin has even built himself a corrugated iron shed-cum-shelter-cum-shop, just for a laugh.
It was really beaut to see all their hakea, banksia, kunzea, dryandra (sp?), eucalypts, grevillea and so on in the Californian sunshine, looking very healthy and happy. Kevin says his only problem with growing them is the gophers, which take a fancy to tender young plants just like rabbits do back home. Otherwise, they take off really well.
There are also avocados on the property, which he sells to Mexican restaurants, and a passionfruit vine - yay! Passionfruit are pricey here - about $3 each.

:: Which reminds me - how's the price of bananas in Perth now? Here they are 2 lbs (about a kilo) for $1.

:: This banksia is a bit frostbitten on the very top from a really cold night recently:


On the beach ...

:: On Saturday, Dave and I walked on the beach at Del Mar (about 3 km from where we live) with the dogs. You can walk on the sand with the dogs on leads until you get to the very end (where you can see the sandy cliff), where there is a very popular and well-used dog beach.
There was pretty good surf on Saturday - this is the break where Will used to have school surfing lessons three mornings a week.

:: This (below) is a view of part of Del Mar looking east, from the beach. It's just gorgeous, but very expensive. San Diego and Los Angeles have the most expensive real estate on the planet.


:: The homes right on the beach are the most expensive of all. Last year, Jenny Craig - of the weight-loss fortune - bought the three houses on the very left of this picture for a cool $25 million.
Will heard that the white one on the extreme left - you can just see part of it - was at one time owned by Brad and Angelina!

:: Lily's coming home next Sunday, for her spring break. So I'm sorting and cleaning and getting ready!