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.