Lucky white heather

We agreed to host a party last weekend. Long story, but basically friend couldn't find a good space for her 40th and our ocean view fit the bill, so we were persuaded - with not too much difficulty I hasten to add. Lets face it, if someone says throw us a party, we'll invite the guests, pay a caterer, bring in a barman and booze, book entertainment AND supply a clean up crew. You just come and enjoy yourself - you're gonna say yes!

So we plan for an inside /outside party. On Friday we all graft to transform the guest room into a lounge bar, open up the doors to the patio, hang fairy lights on the fences, set up the firepit and position the bouganvilla, the caterer drops off glassware, the 'piano' arrives and the bar is set up overlooking the bluffs. We admire our handywork while sipping a beer on the deck, looking for comets in the sky. Bliss.

And it true Scottish party plan style, Saturday morning it's raining.

We bag the fairy light connectors. 1pm its still pouring, so we set up a canopy over the bar. 3pm its peein wi rain. 4.30 pm, birthday girls husband forbids the fairy lights cos he's had 3 shocks already. 5pm the caterer arrives and the house lights start to flicker. 6pm We break into the earthquake kit for storm lamps to put on the stairs which are pitch black for some reason. 6.30 I hit the shower. 7pm guest start to arrive. It rained and rained and rained. The firepit was lit 4 times before we gave up on it. The patio heaters were steaming in the drizzle. The barman was wearing a stockmans hat.

And it was a GREAT party. The rain forced us to keep close and chatty in the bar tent. The piano became a singalong zone and the whole place was lovely decked out in candlelight.
Sunday morning, the sun was splitting the heavens as we all traipsed to Cafe Luca for breakfast.

(Minus husband who couldnt surface until 3pm - some of us get wiser with age - some don't)

horsey talk

Around this time last year, I took some horse-riding lessons. I've always been strangely afraid of horses with no sound reason. Although our niece used to hang out at a riding school and one of her little friends had her nose kicked off by a horse - literally kicked right off her face, so I suppose that's a good enough reason for me to be cautious. I took the lessons because Twinkle was desperate to get horsey - I believe its a little girl phase - although I never recall that from my childhood. Not many horses around where I come from though - except pulling the rag mans cart. Anyway, I took the lessons, bought the cowboy boots, spent QT Sundays with Twinkle, learned how to saddle a horse (gently) catch a horse in paddock (edge up slowly) and even ride a horse (kinda), experienced English and Western (its all in the girth), trail and ring riding (snakes and rails require different skill sets), but when it came to cleaning hooves I quit. There is nothing in this world that will convince me that squatting near a horses backside, grabbing a heaving great leg and resting it on my knee while attempting to scrape sh** with a blunt hook is something worth paying $90 an hour for.
All said though I'm happy to turn up and ride when I'm on holiday now though - which I never was before, so I suppose it was worth it.

Anyway, I recall at the time of these lessons, thinking how when people talk horse, they don't seem to be aware of non-horse context. I presume because they live and breathe horses. It all came back to me this week. Amy at work, is a horsey type, she rode when she lived on the East Coast. Still nags her parents for a horse for her birthday every year (she's older than me even - and thats'way old'). Hasn't been able to ride for a while because of a dodgy shoulder. Anyway, she was chatting to a visitor the other day, who apparently has lots of horses. He's lamenting that his daughter is now more interested in boys and cars. Amy was saying how she never gets to ride any more. Oh, he says, you should come by. We've a lovely arab who'd appreciate a nice ride now and then.

Now I ask you - is it just me?

sloe

comes from blackthorn bushes apparently. found it on another blog.

yumm

Had some fantastic syrupy sloe gin last week courtesy of the lovely visitors from Duck Cottage. We were supposed to leave it till Christmas but we had friends here and my black martini glasses where begging to be used. So what the hell. I refilled the bottle with Bombay Saphire when it was done. Recycled the sloe's if you like - well it is the law to recycle everything here in NorCal. I'll let you know if that works.

What is a sloe? I know its a berry thing ( saw em in the gin) but is there another name for it? Do they grow on a sloe bush? Is there a California version I wonder? And what else do you use Sloe's for then? And is the plural of sloe, sloes?? Must google that.

service

In recent weeks we've had horrid mac problems at home. My laptop keeps crashing, husbands had died, been reborn, died mended, and finally died, deed, capoot. I've spared the gory details of his laptop from this blog - too painful and tedious to relive in word form. But finally, three weeks ago, we gave up on it.

NOW, this means he has to use my laptop. And of course, bleets and whines every time it crashes, a problem excaberated by his constantly downloading crap video clips from his mates, shareware- ing music and storing gazillions of pics of him and his beloved motorcycle - at the side of the road, on a desert road, by a roadsign, on a twisty road, on a tree lined road, etc etc etc. Anyhow, we decide my laptop's problem, unlike his, (which by now has been certified dead and disected accordingly by an overpaid third party), could be fixed by simply replacing the battery. Great. I also have a $100 apple credit burning a hole in my handbag since the iPhone price reduction debacle, so decide this is as good a use as any. We traipse off to the apple store in Palo Alto.

The apple store is usually a family favorite. Kids get to sit and play games. He gets to press buttons and ooh and aah at shiny things, I get to buy some overpriced gadget/accessory/cable under the guise of 'I need it for work'. Not so today. No kids table, loaded with imacs for them to play games on. What? Husband is too depressed to press buttons because he hates apple because his laptop died and it's their fault (according to the 'we hate apple' site). Son then has a meltdown when I tell him he cant have a new $80 game just because he thinks he should. Daughter gets iPod envy because she 'only' has a shuffle and blue isnt her favourite color now anyway so cashes in on her post sleepover grumpiness to the max. Needless to say it gets ugly.

Then, when we do eventually leave we happen to be clutching a gigantic shiny new imac, a battery, an iPhone recharger and some overpriced insurance/extended warranty thing. I can't help but acknowledge its no big surprise my kids are consumer nasty little brats at times, when their parents cant go shopping for a $120 batter without spending 15 times that on a whim.

When we left the UK I was pissed off with the commercialism of everything and how my then 7year-old cared about what label was on her trainers. I knew we were partly to blame, and I did hope we'd change that by coming to Northern California. Among the other things I wanted to change was our eating habits, our lack of outdoorsy activity and our dependancy on tech toys and gadgets.

So I'm reflecting on that now.

The commercialism funnily, is one of the major changes we have managed to make. Here our kids dont care what trainers they wear (not yet anyway), the 9 years dont have mobile phones. In some circles labels do matter - but its just not as all consuming as it felt in the UK. Maybe we're sheltered from it here on the artsy coast, but it is definately less all pervading. And being surrounded by an immigrant population who are working in fields for $4 and hour, and living four families to a home, kinda helps put perspective on some decisions.

The outdoorsy thing we are defo much better at. The tech toys - I dont know if we'll ever beat that. I suspect its just life today - and we're in the wrong place if we think we're gonna escape it! So maybe we''ll just keep an eye on that one.

Eating habits. Potential divorce topic, so I'm gonna skim over that for now - and just keep trying.

My guilt today did do some good though. I've decided that I'm not going shopping again now without a list, a budget and at least two weeks to review and edit the list (that'll be fun at Christmas). And I've now made the decision that the bug is staying. It may be old and iffy. But it goes, so no new car for me this year. I'm self discipline central on the consumer front now.

Oh and as a punishment for my lack of focus and control, when I got home, I found the mac 'genius' had given me the wrong damn battery - and I still had the $100 credit voucher. SO my quandry now is this - does spending the voucher count as shopping? Hmm