It’s been a while since I last caught up with some of my family back home, so I spent a while on Skype with my mum Jane and brother Charlie this morning. The picture quality leaves something to be desired:

The rest of the day has been the events of the ‘Elgin Homecoming’ going on this [...]

We’re now on holiday in Iowa, visiting Jamie’s aunt and grandmother in the small town her mother grew up in, Elgin. It’s a population of 600 – a classic mid-Western farming town.
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We arrived yesterday evening, after a long day’s travelling. The nearest airport within a single flight’s reach from LAX is Minneapolis-St-Paul in [...]

This weekend we escaped to Los Olivos for the wedding of Jennifer and Thomas, family friends of the Orellanas for decades. The wedding yesterday was most memorable, and definitely unique: the ceremony took place under an oak tree in a lavender field. The reception was also superb, with good food and some excellent wine from [...]

I have another woodworking project under way: a spice rack to house our growing collection of herbs and spices. In this picture it is half-built at the carpentry shop (Josh’s garage) last night. Since then it has had some rails fitted to keep the jars in place, and awaits a massaging with sandpaper, followed by [...]

Since about 29th May (when we went to the Bruckner concert downtown), we’ve been mired in June Gloom, a yearly phenomenon in LA and most of coastal California. It’s basically overcast and cool all day, and the sun is hidden for weeks – very reminiscent of Good Old Blighty! It means I can actually get [...]