Sunday hike – Laguna coast wilderness park

Since my first blog post on the subject I have continued to go on the weekly hikes*, I had planned on writing about them all so anyone else in the area could benefit of the places we’re uncovering – a lot of them are probably very well known, especially with locals, but there might be some SoCal newbies out there like me.

However, as you know, I haven’t mentioned it since week one. The walks we’ve done haven’t been really worth writing about. This week was week 7 – we should be on 8 but we missed a week due to a late night partying and a certain husband being hungover, and until then we’d mainly been walking around flat nature reserves looking at the same half drained lake from different angles.

One week took us to Bolsa Chice Ecological reserve and yes, I’m sure the birds love it there and enjoy having a safe haven. But as a place to walk? Seriously! It’s right next the PCH, all the plants seem to be in the various stages of dying and I’m sure the birds would much rather be left alone to waddle through mud and catch fish.
Another week saw us on the Bayview Trial in Upper Newport Bay and their ecological reserve – side note: That’s another thing I’m not enjoying about hiking here, the place is so over run with cities, car dealer ships, fast food joints and malls that the nature has all been consolidated into one area. In this case that one area included tarmac-ed paths for our ease and comfort. WHO GOES HIKING ON TARMAC?!
The worse so far has to be the San Joaquin wildlife sanctuary. I don’t think the park was necessarily worse than the others, it didn’t lack something the others had had, in fact it had a little stream which was a nice edition. It’s more that by week five we were beyond fed up of sanctuary and reserve rambling.
Although when I have children, or am babysitting a niece/nephew, they are great places to go with a push chair.

This week however was different. This was more like the stuff I’d done back in England in the Dales and Peak district. We were at Laguna Coast Wilderness Park on a walk that promised 600ft elevation!
The place was lovely, I really enjoyed it. The walk begins with the most intense part of the incline which, had I known, I would have suggested we do the walk in reverse because it ends on a flat, along a dried out riverbed in the shade. I feel like having that to warm us up would have made the incline an easier and more enjoyable feat.
My British origin was evident on the climb up, I am not used to walking or even being outside in such sunshine. We’d got up early and headed out about 930am in an attempt to beat the worse of the days heat but the sun clearly knew our plan and caught us out. Half way up I made the californian lizard folk stop so I could stand in the shade for a minute or two. Of course this resulted in ridicule and I’ve challenged them all to come on a 1200ft hike in the cold wet winds. That’s my natural habitat, that’s where I thrive!

At the top of the hill you are meant to be able to see the ocean, but the smog prohibits that. Instead you see a hazey blur and pretend its the ocean. We had a choice now, turn left and add a 3 mile extension or loop behind our selves and head back to the car.
It had already been decided that we would stick to the short route so we pretended to enjoy the smog view for a moment while we re-hydrated and ate oranges before beginning the much gentler decline.

The place was quite busy, lots of cyclists whizzing down the hill. I’m always amazed that they aren’t sticking their legs out and screaming in delight as the shoot down the hillside. But I’m also always amazed that they don’t have handle bar streamers or a sweet floral whicker basket for snacks. I’m clearly not of a cycling mentality.
We also passed a few families and couple all slightly out of breath as they scrambled up the hillside.
And Asian folk. On every hike we’ve seen a different  group of asian youths always looking like they’re being forced by their parents (even though there are none around) and always carrying a speaker playing drum and bass as they dawdle around the reserve impeccably dressed in designer gear with beautifully coiffed hair. They really do look stunning but I cannot understand why anyone would prefer such awful music to the birdsong, or crashing waves, or running river, or even just the silence that the various walks have to offer as a soundtrack.

Next week we are attempting a 10 mile, 1300 ft elevated hike and, even more difficult, we want to be up and out by 8am to beat the sun. Maybe I’ll become a night time hiker and go on moonlit strolls, take a thermos of soup for if it’s chilly and never have to worry about skin cancer, the sticky feel of sun cream or the bugs it seems to attract.

*I use the term loosely, this is not hiking as any yorkshire man would know it. There’s no mud – hell you’re on tarmac a lot of the time, rarely an incline and not surpassing 4 miles.

Baking Challenge – February

Before I left the UK my sister gave me a Great British Bake Off calendar, each month has a different recipe on it and I decided to do each one.

January’s was an Olive Loaf and I despise olives so I skipped that and made rosemary bread instead. I would have blogged about it but starting off on a bum note seemed silly and I was glum in January.

February’s recipe was Raspberry Love Heart Biscuits. For my American readers a biscuit is a cookie in American English, in British Proper English a biscuit is a cookie when it has chocolate chips in it. I’m still yet to try an American biscuit so I don’t know what the comparison is, I’m thinking it might be like a scone.

For the recipe you will need a food processor, that’s the one with the blades because you have to crush the almonds. If you don’t have one put the almonds in a bag, seal, and smash with a rolling pin.

You’ll also need two cookie cookers (I call them that not because I am becoming american but because I enjoy alliterations ask Charlie the Chihuahua or Percy the Pug if you don’t believe me), one needs to fit inside the other to make a hole so you can see a lovely jammy centre. I used hearts because it’s valentines day but any shape would do.

The almonds make the mixture extra oily and it is really tempting to use loads of flour during the rolling out process. I beg and advise you to resist this urge as it will end in very dry biscuits. If you have a marble counter top that will help, if you don’t then a glass cutting board will be your friend – cut the dough into four so you don’t go bigger than the cutting board. You’ll also benefit from the use of a thin metal fish slice or American ‘spatula’.

The Recipe

Ingredients for the biscuit
100g unblanched almonds
200g plain flour
A good pinch of salt
80g Icing sugar (that’s powdered sugar in America)
125g unsalted butter chopped
3 large free range egg yolks (how I miss free range eggs!)

Ingredients for the filling
200g raspberries
2 tsp cornflour (that’s cornmeal in America)
3 tbsp caster sugar

Method
In a food processor put the flour, salt and almonds. Pulse until the almonds are crushed.
Add the icing sugar and pulse to mix.
Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like sand – this won’t take too long.
Add the egg yolks and pulse until it forms a dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for 15 minutes, 30-40 if you live in California and it’s bloody hot. Again.
Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit or Gas Mark 4.
Lightly flour a counter top and roll the mixture out until it is the thickness of a pound coin, which is maybe like two nickles stacked atop one another.
The recipe makes 12 x 8cm biscuits so cut out 24 of your larger shape cutters then cut the smaller shape out of 12, giving you 12 bottoms and 12 tops. Place on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes until they are a very light golden brown.
Once cooked leave to cool on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling wrack.

Now it’s time to make the jam!!

Wash the raspberries and and place in a saucepan with the sugar and cornflour. Stir over a medium heat and watch the raspberries turn to mulch.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes.
Allow to cool.1

Once the biscuits and the jam have both cooled spread the jam over a base biscuit the squish on a top biscuit. You’ll notice the jam pushed up through the centre hole so spread more out to the sides before the squishing commences.

Mary Berry recommends serving with cream, extra raspberries and a sprinkle of icing sugar and who am I to argue with her?!

We also had tea with ours, we invited our friends around for a late valentines afternoon tea session. Everyone marveled at how English I am and I sat feeling very superior and smug. That’s a bit of a joke, a little of my British sarcasm leaking through onto the page, please don’t send me hate telling me that if I love England so much I should go home. It’s not that I’m worried I’ll lose in a battle of the wits, I just can’t be arsed with that right now because I have a cat to play with.

Grief

This past month has been hard.

After finding out my friend had died I spent a week unable to shake my melancholy mood, I distracted my self as well as I could with the restrictions that are in place here – no job, no car, no really good friends.

When I moved out here I had a list of things I wanted to do, I planned on reading a book every month, seriously practicing yoga, maybe taking up running, learning italian, and blog about it all (for myself to look back on mainly) and all that has fallen to the wayside during this past month.

Not knowing what happened to Lucy during those final hours, being so far away from anyone else who knew her and having a lot of time to think has made everything feel a little pointless. It also fell in with my PMS and, maybe due to my grief, my period was three weeks late. Three weeks of PMS is not a fun thing for anyone under any conditions.

The funeral was at the beginning of this week. I awoke at 230am and lit a candle for when the ceremony was held in the UK. I then re-lit it at 1030am California time with plans to let it burn out throughout the day. I called friends back home who had attended the funeral to see how it had gone, and to try and find out exactly what had happened. But the family are being quite tight lipped about specifics beyond ‘she took her own life’.

I still like to think it was accidental.

After my phone calls I was ravenous, I thought about leaving the candle lit, about taking it downstairs with me and finally about blowing it out. I felt a little disappointed in myself for not being able to just leave it lit – anxiety is an awful thing. But when I blew it out I felt a weight kind of lift. This week my mood has felt lighter and brighter as the days have passed.So back to the to do list!

Billy Bobcat

About a month ago I did something I never thought I would do.

I excitedly purchased a kitten.

I have always been a dog person, mainly because I am from a dog family. My sister went through a cat phase but living on a busy road it did not end well for the poor guy.
As a child I had a kitten which turned into a cat and meowed loudly and left mice heads in my shoes and was far from a joy.

When I was 14 I got a chihuahua, after two years of nagging my poor parents, and it was love at first sight. There’s just something absolutely wonderful about coming home to a dog and them greeting you with a wag of the tail. They make splendid walking companions – I’ll admit Charlie the Chihuahua fell short in this category but being a dog family we had another five to pick from for walkies. They are the perfect nap buddies and they don’t have sharp claws or a penchant for scratching walls.

Cats on the other hand always seems a little selfish, they would come for feeding and petting but always on their terms and when they were done they would bite you and leave, swishing their tail arrogantly as they left.

When I moved over, Rus promised me a dog. Unfortunately he didn’t think to check with his parents who weren’t exactly over keen on the idea. I also got to thinking about the time commitment. Right now I have nothing but free time, but by the end of the year, if not sooner, I would like to be working again and it would be cruel to leave a dog used to 24/7 attention on his own.

So no california dog for me.

One night Rus suggested I get a kitten. I made a face and said no thank you. In his attempts to persuade me he took me to shelters and showed me ads on craigslist but I still struggled to get excited about it.

Then I saw an advert for Billy. He was born on the streets and then found by the pound. He was next in line for the Lethal Injection when he was recused. Unfortunately his mum wasn’t so lucky and the rescuer had to hand rear him. The ad was asking for someone with the time to pour into helping a skitty, nervous cat.
He was described as a suspected Main Coon mouthbreather who’s tongue shoots out when he sneezes. His picture was adorable.

I made the call and found out all about him. I wasn’t a cat person admittedly but something about this guy made me want to try. There are so many animals in this country who are put to death because we decide they’re overpopulating the streets, why shouldn’t I save one? I could grow to be a cat person perhaps, I could play with yarn.

Just so long as I didn’t have to deal with mice heads in my shoes.

We collected Billy a month ago and I fell in love with him instantly. He spent his first week hiding under the sofa, running out to eat and use the toilet when we weren’t in the room. Slowly he’s got used to me, as I have to him. He sits and watched soaps with me, joins in on skype calls and loves playing fetch. He’s happy to cuddle but more than happy to be left alone with his toys and food.

My family are all very shocked at choosing a cat but right now I’m struggling to think why I wanted a dog in the first place.