Lazy week and up to wine country

Last week I had a very lazy week doing very little.

I went up to Pasadena to meet up with a friend who was over on business from NY. His hotel was pretty darn swanky, and certainly much nicer than the motel I had in Torrance and it was only double the price! I would have expected it to be a lot more. It was a Langham (like the one on Regent's Street). Very nice! I still don't understand why a lot of American hotels charge you to park your car there when you are staying. The highest fee I have seen is $20 per day in Melrose (LA). It's not like you can get anywhere on public transport, so it is a pretty safe bet you will be paying the car parking fee! Put the room rates up and make parking free?

I then spent the rest of my week stayed with my friend down in Huntington Beach, and read, watched TV, walked along the beach and ate Mexican and American food at the beach. Weatherwise most days were lovely and warm and it was terribly easy to lounge on the sofa with the sun streaming through the large windows and snooze like a giant cat...Bagpuss springs to mind.

I drove along the PCH in my new red Ford Focus. It looks much sportier than my Kia, and does have more poke, but I still haven't got used to the delay you get from an automatic when you put your foot down!

It's amazing what you can see on the PCH...

We went to the Santa Ana art trail on Saturday evening. Santa Ana is inland from Huntington Beach, and is a largely Mexican town. Many of the signs for shops etc are all in Spanish. It differed greatly from the Laguna art trail. The art was far more edgy (sometimes equating to crap!) and there was a much heavier police presence in downtown Santa Ana to Laguna Beach, and considerably less free wine (sniff). There were some really cool pieces but the price tag stopped poor little old unemployed me from buying anything. I did however manage to snaffle a free bottle of Stella - result!

The Superbowl came and went with absolutely no involvement from me. The bit I would have enjoyed the most would have been Beyonce! I didn't particularly want to spend 5 hours of my life watching an American Football game.

Instead I decided to spend 8 hours of my life watching A Dance to the Music of Time whilst down here. All I can say is I hope the 11 novel extravaganza is better than the mini series. That is 8 hours of my life I won't get back. I felt compelled to carry on watching it, like some dull car crash filled with odious pompous people and the most boring of narrators, however delicious James Purefoy may look in his 1930s get up. Vacuous rich people all running off with each others spouses and being mean to one and other!

I have also been watching House of Cards. Kevin Spacey has remade the BBC version and taken it to Washington in a 13 part series. It is a Netflix original series and pretty compelling viewing. I love Kevin Spacey's wry talks directly to the camera. Catch it if you can.

But all good things must come to an end, and I had to give my friend her couch back! So I have decided to come up to the Central Cost to try some of the wines up here. I was looking at expensive accommodation in LA, and thought: "I've spent a fair bit of time in LA. Why not go somewhere cheaper with more wine?"

So I am in Santa Barbara (90 miles north of LA, where the mountains meet the ocean) at the moment for a few days R and R by the sea, before heading to Buellton the town of 'Sideways' fame. There will be more posts about wine country, but I will wait till I am sober before writing them, I promise!