Advertisement
Published: June 10th 2010
Another Year, Another Dollar !
Full moon from the front door.It seems a hell of a long time since I last put finger to key and posted a blog in fact it is a long time, something I hasten to add which has not been the result of procrastination, disinterest or even plain bone idleness, quite simply a lack of available time.
When I last wrote I’d just been informed that the end of my time in the employ of F & E was coming to an involuntary end. To be blunt I’d been told my experience wasn't up to their requirements and my services were no longer required but a spanner was thrown into the works less than a week later when they about turned and asked me to stay.
My initial reaction to this sudden change of mind fuelled by a combination of the prospect of fresh challenge, the thought of the associated travel I'd been told would be likely in my newly lined up role and the opportunity to wave goodbye to the daily 405 commute was thanks but no thanks, stick it where the sun don’t shine. Thankfully I somehow resisted the urge to spew forth
Another Year, Another Dollar !
Egyptian Queen. Luxor, Las Vegas. those words and instead told them I needed the weekend to think it over. And I really did.
Somewhat disappointingly I returned home that evening to be informed that the prospective opportunity I’d been told about a few days earlier had fallen through taking with it the need for any necessary life changing decision making and here I still am, three months later and busier with the fruit and vegetable bean counting than ever.
Following Ian and Mandy’s brief visitation I’d spent just a couple of nights in the comfort of my own bed before it was once again time to wave goodbye to that relative luxury and return to the floor boards. Not that I minded particularily, I was getting quite used to it truth be told but with mother Margaret due over for her third visit in just over twelve months with a visit to Sin City (I know, the mind boggles doesn’t it ?) at the top of her agenda it wasn’t as though there was any choice.
This latest sojourn was to be three weeks. Three weeks ! The longest duration of stay of any of my visitors stays to date. Spending such
a period of time with anyone, let alone ones mother, within the confines of a one bedroomed apartment had given cause for concern that it had the potential to feel like anywhere between a whirlwind weekend and the whole of eternity but I needn’t have worried, this was after all our Margy.
Having witnessed most of LA’s major sightseeing attractions on previous visit’s, and I must say for a City of such sprawling magnitude and with the exception of its multiitude of beaches they are decidedly limited, the pace of this trip we’d assured each other via Skype prior to her arrival was going to be decidedly slower. It was a choice that suited us both although having said that the weekends were still crammed packed with visits to amongst other things The Getty Centre, The Griffith Observatory (a first for me too), The Queen Mary and of course Las Vegas.
All my previous visits to Vegas had been by air and had entailed way too much booze and far too little sleep and as we left Long Beach for the four hour drive to the desert the realization was slowly dawning that that this was going to
Another Year, Another Dollar !
Elation. Tiesto rocks Coachella. be a visit with a difference. Marg’s agenda was thankfully alternative to that of 99% of the cities other fun seeking visitor’s, visions of my mother showing her drawers to all and sundry turning somersaults on a lap dancing pole were doing nothing for my blood pressure and we returned two nights, two bottles of beer and a solitary glass of wine later having hiked the length and breadth of the Strip’s famous hotel lobbies with me feeling as though I’d spent the weekend as a houseguest of Miss Betty Ford !.
The neighbours appeared to be as excited as I at the English ladies arrival even going as far as to arrange a Murder Mystery evening in her honor and the three weeks flew by in a whirlwind of strolls, movies and Scrabble on the balcony. My mother really is a remarkable woman and with the promise of no tears (hers not mine !) I dropped her at LAX already looking forward in anticipation to her next visit.
Since my teenage years I’ve loved a good festival, a place where the stresses and responsibilities of the ‘real’ world can be forgotten for a few days at least.
Come to think of it I love a festival period.
They’re not everybody’s cup of tea granted. Three long days and nights spent under the stars completely devoid of any of the comfort trappings of 21st century living, running water included, is not everybody’s idea of a good time even if it is supposedly all in the name of art and it was with a great deal of excitement and anticipation that we loaded the Jeep up with canvas, beer and wine and headed along with 75,000 other like minded folk to the Polo fields of Indio Springs for the eleventh Coachella Music and Arts Fesival.
Having not attended a festival anywhere other than the dewy rain sodden pastures of the English countryside comparisons were inevitably going to be made and within minutes of having passed through the most stringent of vehicle searches, something I’d imagine akin to passing through the iron curtain where I’d been asked to produce ID evidence as proof to an unreasonably over zealous and pre-pubescent ‘security’ person that the tiny pills in the plastic bottle were in fact anti-histamines prescribed by my doctor and not horse tranquilizers carried optimistically in the hope of
a good time we were guided, with all the military precision of the D Day landings to our very own 30 x 10 foot parking and camp area. One nil to the States.
As I marveled at the efficiency of it all memories flooded back to festivals gone by in the UK where my companions and I had struggled to carry, hump and roll a weekends provisions and accommodation a mile or so across rough terrain from car park to camp spot, a manouevre that usually necessitated the next few hours being spent doing nothing more than simply recovering. This was far more civilized and within fifteen minutes of handing over our tickets our makeshift home was erected and we were sat comfortably in our camp chairs cradling ice cold beers.
Another area where the Stateside festival won hands down was perhaps inevitably the weather. Back home packing for a festival weekend requires a clairvoyant like imagination and a tick list as long as your arm, the nuances of an English summer ensuring anything could and quite often does happen but here it is simple; shorts, tee shirt, spare pair of undies and sun block being the order
Another Year, Another Dollar !
Welcome back Marg. Evening with the neighbours. of the day.
Previous Coachella’s had always been staged in mid June but the organizers had this year sensibly and thankfully moved it forward to the cooler climes of April. I say cooler but must point out that the desert sun was still causing temperatures to be hovering around the mid eighties by lunchtime ensuring that a much needed lie in upon awakening each morning was ruled out by a combination of the formation of large globules of sweat on the brow and the inevitable festering odours resulting from two grunting and no doubt farting men having spent the previous four or five hours slowly baking within the confines of a canvas oven.
Even if the music holds no attraction a festival is always worth the admission money simply for the quality of the people watching and this one was no exception. Just sitting around the tent for the whole weekend would have been entertainment enough as people from all walks of life stopped in to say hello. But the music, Muse, Tiesto, Faith No More et al was way more than acceptable and three days after arrival we made our way home tired, disheveled and promising ourselves
Another Year, Another Dollar !
Last snow of winter. Big Bear Lake. to return next year.
America’s equivalent to Britain’s hay fever is the annual descendency of a spring bout of allergies that cause eyes to stream, noses to run and throats to itch. Mine unfortunately were no exception, the pharmacy shelves were bare and so fed up with it all I made an appointment to see the quack and a blood test and three days later I received a phone call.
“Mr Roberts, your cholesterol is critically high. You need to come into see the doctor as soon as possible”
I put the phone down overcome with a feeling of dread. What would this all mean ? I was enjoying life too much to even contemplate a sudden change of lifestyle. Of course I’d heard the word cholesterol a million and one times but I'd inorantly never felt the urge or the desire to actually investigate what it all meant and I returned to Dr Nash’s surgery, a former surfer and one of the most laid back men you could wish to meet to have it all explained to me.
I was sat in the tiny windowless room, one hand over my left eye monitoring the rapidly
Another Year, Another Dollar !
With the cast. Murder Mystery evening. accelerating deterioration of my eyesight when he finally entered and his smiling carefree manner, despite being dressed from head to toe in surgical green giving the impression that he was scrubbed up and raring to go immediately put me at ease.
I exhaled a slight sigh of relief when he told me he didn’t see it just yet as a problem serious enough to immediately warrant putting pen to paper to send me scurrying to the pharmacy and then went on to suggest nothing other than a slight tweak of the diet and a monitoring over the next couple of months. I questioned in my mind for a brief moment whether if he’d have found me riddled with puss seeping gangrenous sores and with my hair falling out in clumps that he'd have seen it as being a cause for concern but his suggestion to do nothing but be more selective with my diet was music to my ears. I return later this week for a check up to see if his advice has produced the required results.
The months since my last blog have seen several anniversary’s come and go, the forty seventh since my birth, the
second since my arrival in America and the first of my incarceration at the hands of Long Beaches finest not to mention a return at first attempt to the higher echelons of English soccer for my beloved Canaries.
The first, my 47th had passed painlessly enough celebrated with an evening at the local Greek restaurant and assisted by the message on my card from Phil’s eldest daughter Olivia who wrote “Happy Birthday Pigster. Remember age is just a number”. The second, twenty four months after my arrival Stateside was as equally painless and just reinforced the old adage “Time flies when you’re having fun” and the third, well, less said about the third other than to say this Memorial Weekend was far more memorable than the last for all the right reasons !
Now the summer is kicking in, The World Cup is about to commence starting Saturday for England with their opening game against my hosts meaning it's time for the three lions to come out of hibernation and I’m shortly due to board a plane for my annual journey home. I, for one, for all three cannot wait !!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.421s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 21; qc: 98; dbt: 0.248s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Rainer Kaber
non-member comment
Festivals and Eating habits
Eating habits, f***ing eating habits!!!!!! Need I say more. Coachella Music and Arts Festival sounds like quite a rager, would surly not have taken Phill and you as campers. Can already imagine you two with your caravan in a couple of years time heading down the 405. Awesome. Thanks for the blogs Matt, always fun to read, and keep the glass full. Ze German