The part where Ruth lays on the floor screaming, with flailing arms and legs.....

And I do NOT want to go home.  Usually by this point I am ready for my own bed, a change of clothes, some reality...this time in no way do I want to get on that plane back to the UK.  

After reluctantly leaving the picture gallery of the Hollywood Museum and finding the gorgeous ones again after they re parked the car, we felt faint with hunger, after all, it had been at least 3 hours since we had eaten anything and the diner right next door looked perfect.  It turned out it was the diner used in America Graffiti and is complete with booths, bus boys in little paper caps  and   aprons and seating at the counter.  We order shakes and sandwiches and  of course they come with a cherry on the top, simply perfect.  

We sit and congratulate ourselves on yet another amazing day, Daisy tells us how much she wants to go the contemporary music college right across the road (they just had to go in and have a look as they went to park the car... Lots of kids in black with long hair carrying guitars, what is not to love) and Sam is giddy with excitement about going to look at the Hollywood sign.

Unable to contain himself, or us, any longer we are ushered to the best vantage point to see it... And it is THERE, it really is right there!  Amazingly Old Hollywood, still right there for all to see.

A brief interlude where we are approached by a man that tells us we must be English as we have pizzazz (yes, yes I do have pizzazz, sparkling pizzazz) this has been the wonderful thing about America, every one we have met, from the guys on the street, to the people in the stores, to locals behind us in the queue at the gas station, EVERYONE has been so friendly, so charming, so eager to chat.  Not because they want to sell us anything, but just because they want to chat, share an exchange, be friendly.  And I like being friendly.  Of course Sam would happily stand and talk to anyone all day, so getting him out of stores at times has been hard, but even Daisy is now in the stride of being here and is answering the many many people that have complimented her on her hair.  Daisy has Pizzazz

Wandering on, our flip flops melting and sticking to the sidewalk we get to Mann's Chinese Theatre and again, it is everything we hoped it would be.  Gasp at the size of Judy Garlands feet, Sam shrieks at the Star Wars prints and I take endless pictures of long dead silver screen idols hands and feet and am genuinely moved by the messages they put there and the original spirit of why they did it (yes yes, I know it was  a publicity stunt to get more people to come to his movie house, but to see prints from Clarke Gable and Mary Pickford- amazing)  I make Sam measure his hands in the Clint Eastwood cast (Sam's chat up line, long long ago, in a galaxy far far away was that he was as tall as Clint Eastwood) and even Daisy finds casts to coo over.

This is Hollywood, the Hollywood I have dreamed about coming to.  The studios, the movies, the premiers, the lights, the heat... From Chaplin to Clara Bow, from Marilyn to John Barrymore, I have dreamt about seeing this, being part of this, even just for a moment and with the museum and now this, it really is still here.

We leave and decide we simply must see Beverly Hills and I wish we had downloaded a map of silver screen stars homes.  The streets are wide, clean and unbelievably quiet.  HUGE houses hidden by high walls and palm trees, with columns supporting the highest ceilings and the biggest windows I have ever seen....I daydream as we are driving along that I am being taken home by me chauffeur after at long day on set to lay by the pool with a glass of champagne in my hand and a chef cooking me dinner.....

After a drive down Rodeo drive, my chauffeur decides he has had enough of all this driving and our trusty SatNav takes us back to Venice, but not on the freeway, which is sooo much better!  It's is hard to get a sense of the size of LA and how each area relates to everywhere else as we have been pretty much tied to the Freeway and it is disorientating to do it all without a map.  It is great to just drive through the different areas, past the bars and stores that all SCREAM at us to explore more...

And so we have to go home.  Final dinner by the pool, with our lovely Gariella joining us to tell us amazing stories about the history of Venice Beach, drinking wine and making me feel as if I am with my own family.  She tells us we must come back and not only that, would we like her house over Xmas, for free, just looking after the cat... Oh and she also has a car as long as we get on the insurance....and we tell Daisy and she looks like she is going to explode and Sam thinking about what he can sell so we can afford the airfare and the fairy lights in the trees and the CAT in the tree and the banana trees from Douglas Fairbanks.  It is all too much and I simply can not sleep for thinking about it all.

And now, right now we are at LAX

Heaven, I'm in heaven and my heart beats so I that can hardly speak.....

HOLLYWOOD!!!!! I had thought that with the American desire to always have new and shiny, to obliterate their past as they do not feel it is history worth keeping (hence thinking that Europe is so 'full of history') that there would be nothing left of Hollywood, real silver screen, golden age, Clarke Gable, Mary Pickford and Errol Flynn Hollywood, but there is! Simply the most wonderful, heart lifting, spirit soaring museum and it is just off Hollywood! And you can feel the glamour and the excitement all around!

The day starts as I wish every day for the rest of my life would start, sunshine, ocean, skating, cycling, iced coffee, sand, pancakes.  I just can not get enough of the architecture, the different styles of house, one moment tiny Spanish pueblo in ochre with roses around the edges, the next floor to ceiling windows with chrome and cacti.  I amble around the streets before meeting the gorgeous ones on the beach and my legs feel good.  If I could cycle everywhere for the rest of my life I would be happy.

But then we want to be IN Hollywood.... We program into our ever compliant and helpful SatNav all the places we want to see and she delivers us safely.  Kat Von D's High Voltage tattoo place first, not as cool or as hip it has to be said as the one in New York... People are not as friendly, although the area is  awesome and I wish, as I have wished endlessly whilst we have been away, that we had more time to explore.  And then we are in Hollywood.  Of course, you go 2 streets back from Mann's Chinese Theatre and you can park for free, in a beautiful palm tree lined apartment lined avenue, so we park and eagerly race into the stunning Art Deco building that was the Max Factor head quarters and is now the Hollywood Museum. 

And I am head over heels in love.  A million things to see....Here a pair of the Ruby Slippers from Oz, I can see each handstiched sequin (darker than the red they dyed the silk of the shoes with, bright red would have read as orange in Technicolor) and each bugle bead.

Max Factor's makeup boxes sit in glass cabinets, each of the pansticks worn quite specifically on one side. 

 Each of the rooms carefully decorated to enhance the colouring of the stars of the time (pale green just for red heads as it sets off the red complexion to perfection, pale pink for blondes....)

Sam & Daisy vanish as I am totally absorbed into Hollywood glamour.  I am lost in a world of powder and wig making, thinking of my great grandmother and the stars she made up and how she must have worked with similar tools and in similar chairs, over faces like the ones I can see in the pictures.  It makes me cry. And smile.  I am totally lost.

The is a spectacular Marilyn exhibition on the 1st floor, her beaded dresses from entertaining the troops, and casual outfits she wore and obviously loved from the slight sweat stains that can still be seen. Her dresses are beautiful, it is fantastic to see them and to study her proportions, to see her curves and the size of her feet, there is one dress that was made for her that she is photographed in, but she never wore as it was too small and you can see the rips in it.  But for me, the letters, the bills, her eye drops, her fridge, her make up and pots of cream from beside her bed when she died make me catch my breath.  There is a wonderful photographic exhibition to accompany the flotsam from her life by the photographer that really understood her and allowed her character to shine, George Barris, many of which were taken on Santa Monica beach and I could stand all day looking at her beauty.

The curation of this exhibition is truly remarkable and it is amazing we have caught it as it is due to come down within a matter of weeks.  The collection of her dresses alone I would have paid to go and see, the dress from the Prince and The Showgirl, with the film showing in the background, along side her Capri pants and casual cardigan that she wore when released from hospital, I can hardly catch my breathe!

Even the restrooms are extraordinary as they have been kept as they where in the 20's, as used by the employee's of Max Factor.  Painted the most perfect Art Deco green with chrome fittings, I stayed longer than is decent for any restroom just taking photographs....

The Marilyn exhibition blends into the permanent exhibitions which are equally as awe-inspiring, Theada Bara's jewellery from the 20's Cleopatra unlit and tarnished, Clara Bow's flapper dress hidden at the back of a cabinet with Chaplin's clapper board, scores of original movie posters from the 20's onwards, newspapers from Jean Harlow's death, movie cameras used in the early talkies, and make up, and pictures of make up artists and wig mistresses! Omg, my heart soars to see this! And credits to all those amazing women and men that worked in this industry, you never see them credited....

I have to send Sam & Daisy off to move the car as I simply can not leave the photographs of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in their pool or the test shots of Marilyn, or the dye samples of Lucille Balls hair.

I am speechless by the end of my time there.  I try to tell the glamorous woman that runs the museum about my Great Grandmother and how she would have worked here in Hollywood but by a twist of fate, but I am too choked up.   Instead, I simply ask that she take my picture.

The wheels that make us happy.

We know we are on a count down.  What is it with holidays that just as you get in the swing of them,  you have to leave? LA is unexpectedly awesome and it feels as if the is far too much left to explore and  I am frothing at the mouth at the thought of having to return to England.  Every road leads to something else I want to see, every corner shows me something exciting and every freeway seems to point towards somewhere even more thrilling than before.

Even the sleeping is easier.  Yes the sun is quite violent in its brightness first thing, but I like that being an early bird and here, I am not insanely early as I am at home.  No 5am here, I wake, yawn, stretch make tea, but at a leisurely 7 or even 8 am.  So we wake, eat breakfast in the open air (another thing I am addicted to, who wants to have breakfast INSIDE?) and the GET out.... I jump on one of the 7 bikes Gabriella puts at our disposal and start to pedal. I swear I am never more happy than when on a bike, no, maybe the only thing that makes me happier is to cycle along the beach, which after pedalling down the back streets ogling the mix of architecture, I do.  I cycle up and down the boulevard looking for the gorgeous ones who have decided they simply MUST roller skate along Venice Beach as the dudes they really are.  And I love it.  Venice Beach wakes up slowly, the drunks slowly packing away their sleeping bags, or roll a spliff or cat call 'hey preeetty lady' or start to get their cardboard signs.  There is nothing threatening, nothing is threatening at 10am. It has the feel of the morning after a free festival in the late 80's.  People just are. And then there are the mums in their tiny bikinis roller skating pushing babies in pushchairs, or men practising kick boxing, or the guys jogging with their tops off, or the groups playing volleyball in the sands. And I love it.  I cycle behind the gorgeous ones along the boardwalk towards Santa Monica pier and they are so cool.

People stop and call out at them as we pass and I adore the, for being so cool.

We wheel all the way to the pier and the all the way back towards the fisherman's pier at the other end.  In the sunshine, along the beach with the ocean in my view and the amazing houses with acres of glass and painted all colours with outdoor beds, or gardens, or pools on their roofs. And I love it.

We race back, shower change and head off to Long Beach, the place Steven, a lovely guy we met in The Castro, has suggested we simply MUST visit to shop as it is called Rockabilly Row.  Again we listen to amazing music on the way there (Elvis radio? Yes please, Underground music? Why thank you) the sun glittering off the million lanes of endless cars.

And Long Beach is great, well, the one road to be fair. Lots of thrift shops to search through and LOTS of vintage shops, HUGE vintage shops with some great great stock.  Now, I love to browse in a good vintage shop, regardless of the prices, I just love to look, feel the fabrics, adore the jewellery, peek into the cases, not necessarily to buy, I am not actually a huge fan of wearing vintage due to the fabrics involved, but I appreciate. And there is much to appreciate here!  Every shop has friendly people who simply want to chat, and we LOVE to chat so it takes us a fair while to get to the end of Rockabilly Row and YES, I finally find a few lovely pieces to buy! An adorable red & black polka dot dress, another  spotty dress and bright yellow bowling shirt....of course Sam finds some GORGEOUS things that make him look even more handsome and even Daisy who has spent all her funds manages to wheedle a couple of tshirts and vintage badges...

We return to Venice content with our purchases, with big beaming smiles on our faces and head towards a great row of surfy shops, bars and restaurants I spied whilst out cycling, just a few blocks from where we live (yes live, am not planning on coming home)  And we eat in an amazing Italian, outdoor piazza, around a fountain, the most attentive waiting staff that seem to bring out the most delicious dough balls every 5 minutes, that also have an honesty wine bottle that you help yourself to and you only pay for how many glasses you tell them you have had (imagine that in England....) with potion sizes made for giants and sauces so fresh I could almost have cooked them myself.  We all laugh a lot.  Daisy eats a HUGE amount of pasta and garlic dough balls.  The car sinks so much when we get in that the door jams on the grass verge.

And I write, I want to capture everything from the last few days, I want to hold on tight to every moment.  I know we are unlikely to ever have this kind of holiday again, the 3 of us and I don't want it to end.  Why, just when you get the hang of being on holiday do you have to go home.

Sharks, Transformers and Ferries Wheels

Bright bright sunshine wakes me up.  Another reason for me to love Venice beach, the sun gets you up BAM it's time to get up now, look at me, I am sparkling off the pool and reminding you you need to be awake and enjoying yourself....LOVE.  

I leave the gorgeous ones sleeping, as they like to do and take a wander to the supermarket which is a couple of blocks away.  I tell myself I am being a wonderful selfless mother and wife, going to get the essentials needed for breakfast but really I just want to indulge in an American supermarket on my own... DAMN It's good.  Aisles and aisles of pointless, tasty, fattening foods.  Pancake mix, pancake syrup, popcorn with butter spray, PB&J all in one jar, squeezey cheese, orange juice that only comes in gallon sizes, a billion types of bagel.  Seriously, do English supermarkets look like this and I just don't notice anymore as I would NEVER buy this stuff at home?  Is there anything more exciting than a supermarket in another country? I want to buy it all, but hold myself back and only buy breakfast (cereal that tastes like America and strawberries, mmmmm, finally fresh strawberries on my cereal)

Upon my return, the gorgeous ones awake and despite a slightly bizarre and sad start to the day as Gabriella's  old, blind dog Gus, has died in the night after falling into the pool so there a tears, but asGabriella  says, 'it feels like a Fellini film' so we hurriedly get ourselves up and out as today we are GOING TO UNIVERSAL!!!! Omg, omg, omg.... I so remember the feeling the first time we went to a theme park in America, it simply felt like a magical place.  Nothing in England ever comes close to the total immersion into fantasy, giving yourself over to absolute pleasure you may say.  So, going to Universal is exciting, something we have all wanted to do this holiday and ohhhh, do we indulge.  From the 8 lane LA highway, gleaming in the sun on the way there we decide today is going to be awesome from start to finish and rather than get frustrated at the endless nose to tail traffic we decide it looks like the sea... A sea of sparkly cars.

And then woooooooo hoooooo, we are in the park... What to go on first? Sam is adamant we have to go on the studio tour first, so we hop aboard...and it's AMAZING.  It is everything that as a teenager I wanted to see, rubber sharks, cheesy story lines including an earthquake in a SF underground tunnel and a Mexican flood (one of my favourite parts was looking behind as we were leaving the  soundstage with the SF earthquake and seeing the truck that moments before was going to plunge down and kill us all, reset back up unto the flys.)  It is all so well rehearsed and slick and FUN!  What is not to love.

Sam loves every second and is giddy when Jaws jumps (predictably, but come on that's half, no all the fun) out of the foaming waters of Amity Island.

I liked the glimpse of the sound stage cafe and Hitchcock's bungalow on the lot and of course the King Kong set piece, but then I love a good scream.

Leaving the tour we race to the next ride, deciding we want to experience as much as we possibly can (considering we have done no exercise and eaten and drank everything in our paths for seemingly weeks now) The Simpsons ride is as much fun as we remember it being, but it does not satiate our need for more more more and we leap (like well fed gazelles) down the escalators and jump on The Mummy ride.  One of the best reasons for coming to any theme park the day AFTER a holiday day, is that there are no queues and we simply run through all the empty lines straight to the front of everything, feeling slightly sorry for all the saps that paid extra for their Fast Pass tickets.  

The Mummy ride is too short and not scary enough, so we rush to the Jurassic Park ride all humming the theme tune and avidly looking for dinosaurs in the bushes.  This was not a disappointing ride as we cooed over plastic dinosaurs and ducked as they shot water at us and then....screamed as we got TOTALLY drenched.  I literally looked as though someone has stood over me with a bucket, no two buckets of water and poured them over my head.  Heaven.  It was so hot it took us only moments to dry off whilst watching others come down the water flume and whilst watching a mum having a what she thought  was a sneaky fag....right in the soak zone. Brilliant.

Giggling we skip over to the Transformers ride and despite being in the same 'car' as Beavis & Butthead we all scream and laugh and shriek and LOVE being thrown around an imaginary wasteland trying to save the All spark from Megatron, or something along those lines  Infact we love it so much we run out, straight around the side and back in! No queue so straight in a car to be spun, bumped, and buffeted again! Brilliant.

Not sue that anything else can really compare to that ride, so we munch it bagels, look at the acres and acres of film studio land from the highest point and wander around the streets of 'London' and 'Paris'.  We decide we really should have a look at the Horror rooms supposedly a collection of Universals horror film memorabilia...amazingly it was a very old fashioned but incredibly well 

executed (!) Haunted House, with some great props, such as Chucky Dolls, some great sets, Frankensteins lab and of course complete with cast members that jump out from the dark corners and make you SCREAM!!!!!! Hilarious fun, even though you know it's coming, even though you have heard the people up ahead, even though at one point we could see over the balcony to the floor below and see monsters grabbing through bars, we still screamed! Psycho coming out of the shower made me shriek, whilst a werewolf made Sam throw women and children after him, and poor Daisy jumped so far she jumped into a wall.  Brilliant.

Nothing really compares to a Haunted House.

We leave the park, arm in arm, skipping to the car (well, metaphorically) and Sam bravely negotiates, with the able assistance of our SatNav that obviously favours America as she is sharp and right on it, the LA traffic to Santa Monica, which we have seen in the distance from Venice Beach.  We arrive at sunset.

It could not be anymore beautiful.  We could not have had a more fun day.  I could not love Sam & Daisy anymore.

And then we saw Douglas Fairbanks banana trees....

Out of the desert to the cooler breeze of the coast.  I was sad to leave Palm Springs, at night it is all lit with fairy lights and every one knows how much I love the sparkles.  Who wouldn't love a sparkly palm tree?

But it was damned hot, and my poor loves were really feeling the roasting heat.  So with some regret we drive to LA, well Venice Beach, well close to Venice Beach.  Again we have that moment where we doubt the pictures on Airbnb and wonder what on earth we have booked ourselves into, especially as the road we turn off of seems like a 6 lane crazy pile up....but then we walk through Gabriella's gate and.....it is almost like coming to see family!  Gabriella is the most friendly Argentian architect who welcomes us into her home with kisses, hugs and tales of when she lived in squats in Portobello in the 70's with Irish punks and knows Estepona in Spain where my mum lives! As we arrive on Labor Day, the last big bank holiday of the summer in the US, Gabriella announces we are to have a BBQ that evening for her daughter and friends and she would LOVE us to come, how could we refuse?

We throw our suitcases in the rooms (simply the most gorgeous 'pool house' but complete with full kitchen, bathroom, HUGE FRIDGE and of course wifi.... Everywhere in the US has wifi, from the smallest cafe, to every house we have stayed in, apart from Vegas, where apparently you can only get plug in... Really??) and head on out to see the sea.  As seaside dwellers I must confess I have been missing the sea, I saw it briefly in SanFrancisco, but to have been without it for nearly 3 weeks is hard so I am hopping with excitement to be close, so close I can smell it and then there it is! 

Complete with classic life saver huts with Pamela and David (well not actually, much MUCH fitter looking than that and effortlessly cool) and the water sparkles, YES! And there are waves to jump and that dump you to the sea bed and the sand is soft and hot and there are pelicans and helicopters and planes with banners and and and.....ahhhhhh. God I love the sea.

So we are in Venice Beach, on Labor Day.  When I mentioned to people we were staying here in LA the response was mixed, well, no not mixed, more horrified with a side order of despair, but, I quite like it.  Yes, it's loud of course and a bit crazy.  But America has been crazy.  We have seen the homeless and the sick and the lame everywhere, from New York to Palm Springs and Venice Beach just seems to sum it all up.  It is very much like Camden by the sea, but more, much more.  We walk the length, see the dread guy on the bike playing the electric guitar, see the guys selling weed on prescription, the shops seeking crap tie dyed tshirts and flip flops and the hippies selling, well just about anything, from airbrushed paintings to Mexican heads.  But.... See beyond that and you see the families with little babies playing in the bars who are out for the day, see the rollerskaters zigzagging between the crowds, see the people biking beside the beach, see the joggers concentrating hard, see the man with a cup on a string in the apartment talking to a girl on the board walk.  We wander down to the skateboard park and stand astounded watching the skaters.  Just skating because they can. Because its fun and because people are watching.  They are amazing.  We watch the guys in the bowl rollerskating, old skool style to hip hop, big rasta guys with crazy American flag trousers with hip young chicks, twisting and dancing under the palm trees with the graffiti in the concrete and the smell of the ocean, mixed with the smell of unwashed hippy and urine.

 

Strangely, I like it.

We return back to the house and find a BBQ in full swing, the fairy lights are on and big long tables are set  up under them and under the trees. Gabriella and Sam exchange stories about living in Notting Hill, we meet her daughters friends, one of whom comes from Wales via Hackney (and couldn't have lived anywhere else in London) and we talk about  changes in Venice beach over the years, architecture (which is stunning in the roads around where we are staying, ranging from tiny Mexican houses, to big square, glass and concrete modernist buildings that you just know are filled with white sofas and maple flooring) and strangely about the banana trees in Gabriella's beautiful garden, which come from the  estate of Douglas Fairbanks.

I am missing being with family this year in France (all my family, extended friends, parents, friends of friends all of us that have spent time in the orchard and around the the table drinking wine and playing cards) and somehow Gabriella makes me feel like I am coming home.

There are only two things you need to know about the desert.....

 There are only two things you need to know about the desert. 

A. It is hot

B. it is vast.

And that really is it, you could perhaps throw in a couple of mountains perhaps, maybe a trailer park even few billions miles. But that's it, other than comedy cacti and MASSIVE trucks with what looks scarily like knives on their wheels, just in case you get too close.  We find an excellent radio station to take us across the desert (50's on 5, 60's on 6 or should we listen to 70's on 7?) and we drive to Palm Springs.

Ahhhh Palm Springs, the most perfect low rise town in the desert mountains.  Laying by the pool I can see the mountains in the back ground, framed by the hot pink bougainvillea and the tall pineapple like palm trees and it is desert hot.  So hot it feels as if you are breathing in fire and I love the feeling of it on my skin.  I know just how bad for me it is, but with my dry itchy psoriasis this is just the most perfect feeling.  I can feel it literally scorching my lungs...wonderful.

Yesterday after depositing a rather flue -y Daisy in the beautiful apartment that is right on the pool at Casa Cody Sam & I wander around the town.  Or the street, as there is really only 1 street in Palm Springs, a beautiful street but that is pretty much it.  The bar we decide upon is cooled with misters and we settle down for a good chat and a few beers before retuning to check on the patient.  There are $4 margaritas and we find a litre of tequila for $14 (I don't drink it ALL of course) all of which, combined with the long drive  and a particular time of the month prove too much and an early night is had.

The morning is bright, dazzling yellows and pinks and greens of the gardens, sizzling bright blue sky and I sit, mainly in the company of Mr R Everett, all day, blissfully day dreaming of New York, theatres, underground clubs Noel Coward.  Sam & Daisy retreat into the coolness (virtually arctic I feel, but each to their own) of the apartment rooms to watch reruns of dreadful films and I breathe in the fire and swim and tie my hair up in a rather fetching 50's hair band, my eyes hidden behind the biggest black glasses and pretend I am a silver screen Hollywood film star escaping from the cameras beside a kidney shaped pool and that Charlie Chaplin will emerge from one of the rooms and ask me if I would like another mimosa daaaarhling (and yes, I really do)

I take a wander once the sun has gone down.... treat myself to a totally delicious iced coffee and a look up Marilyn's  skirt, yes she does have the most wonderful lacey knickers on....

Of course, Palm Springs, is is where Marilyn was 'discovered'.  It is also like a slice of old Hollywood, with stars in the walkways commemorating actors and, it seems, pioneers and cowboys!  I just love it and can imagine retiring to such a place, could the house perched on the mountains be the one of my dreams?

Onwards and upwards.... LA and Santa Monica beach tomorrow and thus our holiday slowly comes to an end, the last stop....I am now totally out of ideas to inspire and drag Sam & Daisy too and other than Universal Studios I think I may just lay by the side of a pool for the rest of the holiday....