Cali roads...

A local reservoir... A nice walk around, quite a few walkers, and a few cyclists, plenty of dogs too!

It's been such a long time since I actually walked anywhere! Every single muscle in my legs and adjoining are aching, real bad! Even those muscles at the front of my shins!!! Crazy eh!?!

That photograph above could be the view from the terrace! The mountain bit I mean...

The information at the reservoir, I, not intentionally! followed a woman onto the entrance to the area, I turned right at the gate, she went left, we past eachother on the route around and she left just before me, but I stopped a few times to take photographs, and stopped for a drink!

This photograph I took yesterday on my way down to the local shops, climbing back up to here was challenging! Lol... For eight weeks on placement, the furthest I walked was around the supermarket! Nothing up or downhill! I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest climbing back up here!!

Last Saturday we went to Palm Springs, what an amazingly fabulous evening! Met up with a cousin I hadn't seen in far too many years... And I had one too many Screaming Zombies!

Popped into a casino on the way home too!

Cali - my first road...

I am here, I arrived okay, tired, but okay. I did a Blog draft on my Kindle on the flight over but haven't even checked it out!

As I write now, I am tired! I woke up at 4:30am! I don't think it's jet lag now, just my normal head being busy and too much thinking crapola!

Because yesterday although I woke initially at 3am I slept through to 6:30 and got up feeling more refreshed than I had in what felt like years!!

So? Yes I arrived into LAX, my brother and his wife came and picked me up... It was a drive-by dash and grab for me and took a couple of drive-by's to find me! Whilst waiting I people watched... So many men with bouquets of flowers! Small, large, impossibly grand (looked like a window display!!), to the potted variety! And some guys had teddy bears!! So sweet...

Once back to their house I got a second wind as 'they' call it and managed to stay up and awake for quite awhile, but when I did go to bed I had been up for 25 hours! Blah!!!

That was Monday... A good flight, a couple of short naps on board, but with a new born and a toddler in front, not a quiet one! Even LAX was a breeze, caught it just right, passport control, baggage and final check...

Leaving Gatwick my only conversation at the gate was in Spanish, a guy returning to LA, but he originally came from Torremolinos! And then at LAX my first conversation was in Spanish! A couple of guys traveling with all their gear, a heavy metal rock band!! And waiting outside the doors for my brother... A Spanish couple asked me, in Spanish where the taxi rank was!!

Why does anyone teach any other language than Spanish! It's just not necessary!

Okay! Tuesday? Bro worked, and we, went to a burger place and Target for shopping... Wednesday? We had a fright-fest on TV day, just chilling... Metaphorically, it's been in the high 90's here!! Yesterday, Thursday, my very first Thanksgiving here in the states since I was a baby! Crazy eh! And we went to my sister-in-laws mom's, only a ten minute drive, was lovely to be invited... A great family... I was a bit nervous beforehand..  so many new people, but of course everyone made me feel at home, and I did...

Today we're having lunch with my brother's brother!

Insomnia! Ugh! Last night was bad, I am too tired for insomnia, I am used to waking up lots, turning and falling back to sleep, and on last nights in placements okay, maybe normal for then too... I am past tired, as I may have mentioned before and I am sorry for any typos, I am just too tired and not noticing!

It didn't help early hours of this morning as I started to draft a Blog! I then I wake up and can't remember, if I don't make notes! Which would be okay if I didn't have to get up! I even thought maybe I am getting my body ready for West coast time! Because I will be having a 23 or 24 hour day next Monday!  Thought I would try it out last night!?!

I actually wrote this yesterday morning, but too tired on my break to finish it!

And even today typing on my phone I have a bit of tired tic blinking thing going on in my right eye! Great, looks like I'm winking!!

I did also write this below yesterday, a thought in my head during my sleepless night...

***

Family who are friends and friends who have become family... And spread far and wide to say the very least!

***

I guess I was thinking about if I moved again, how distance doesn't keep our love and friendship parted...

Don't ask me what I'm thinking; my road ahead is misty, I can't see the edges, there could be precipices on either side to let me fall...

I can't even see a light at the end, but then maybe there never is one.  As I've said before, life is the journey, not the end, my Ithaca holds the light and all I can do is really what we all do isn't it? Live.

Well, odd selection of photographs forsure!

Firstly a new hoodie! I left mine in the house, I can see it there, in my mind's eye, on the coat rack so I don't forget it!

We looked for one a couple of weeks ago and none of them had zippers, well maybe one or two, that I didn't like!

Gave up today and bought one without the zipper! Hoodie good size for hiding in on long flights... It's warm, and instead of two pockets, I can put my hands in and they can warm up together!!

Only problem is it's difficult to get back off, so should be fun on a plane!!!

Bit of a far away shot above but the pair of crows I had been watching were being so tender, checking eachothers feathers, prodding and rearranging feathers... Cute!

And at M&S in Stratford this morning, toasted tea cake and latte! Plastic knife! Lol... Not so cool?

Five days to go, and I had a test run with my suitcase, it's just for some reason I didn't think things would fit! Although I hadn't brought much, and haven't bought much! But even so I worried... Well all is well! Of course!

Nothing much more I can add... I am exhausted, my eye sockets are black in places! And when I went back to my car in the carpark I wondered if someone had moved the car!! Who the hell parked it like that!!! Lol

Japanese Saying

I saw a Tweet, the Japanese say we have three faces.

The first is the one we show to the world

The second is for close friends and family

The third is the one you never show anyone and is the truest reflection of who you are

***

To love and be loved in return, a true real love; I think to give the real reflection must be the greatest gift

Grief is the price of Love

Grief is the price of Love...

The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment. To ignore this fact, or to pretend that it is not so, is to put on emotional blinkers which leave us unprepared for the losses that will inevitable occur in our own lives and unprepared to help others cope with losses in theirs.

Dr Colin Murray Parkes

The sky is a beautiful winter blue, and I said how it's amazing because it's not really blue, it's reflections of stuff... But I forget in school I learnt things previously undiscovered, just as kids do now compared to us! Although we have the tech now so I keep up with the weird science stuff because I enjoy it!

Anyways! Customer didn't believe me, I said shall I look on here... The phone? "Yes please." 

So I read out the facts that it's blue because of molecules etc etc... therefore an illusion!! And then I said, but then we're just molecules too arnt we! 

I wonder if that's why when we meet certain people, find lifetime friends, fall in love...

It's our real selves that love, our souls... That I think live on without physical constraints because outside is mere illusion...

My foot, lionesses foot!
Whipsanade Zoo

Yesterday afternoon was a documentary about the Born Free movie from back in the '60's I think they said.

It was a bit emotional to say the least, I've only seen the movie twice, once was the day we picked our pup, a German Shepherd, back in... about 1983/84. We called her Elsa... And then the second time was when Elsa was being driven away by the same people we bought her from... Because we couldn't keep her where we were... Ironically Born Free was on the TV and our Elsa left us.

I hadn't known the full story of the couple that ultimately lost their lives because of the lions they loved...

So tears! All over the place in that!

Then! A Christmas movie!! And tears again, happy endings eh...

Yep, me, three years ago today, don't ask why the dot by my mouth, because I don't know and it says it's the original, wondering if I took it with a direct site like fb and went to write on it? Who knows, it's not the point...

The point I suppose is this... That that woman above, that me... I don't know her anymore, life changes us, people, so much has changed that I am now not who I was then... I guess I'm not anyone I have been before, and that's what we do we evolve during our lifetimes don't we... We have to to complete ourselves...

To become... to grow...

I am coming to the end of six weeks here, two to go and the adventure continues...

What would I do if they removed the ... Lol I use too many I know! I just have trouble ending sentences don't I!

Endings are final. I can't do them;