50 hikes and a turtle hunt.

On a recent trip to Barnes and Nobel I found this little gem of a book. It was just after the weekend before NYE and Rus and I had done NOTHING all weekend, I was going stir crazy, we were both crabby and fed up and realising that we needed stuff to fill our time with.

I have always loved walking and hiking, as a child I would spend my weekends with my family and our dogs on the hills of Derbyshire, playing in rivers or waterfalls, scaring sheep and eating a picnic elevated high above sealevel.
As an adult I still enjoyed trips to the peaks but work prohibited it being a too frequent event. Luckily I was still just a ten minute walk from farmers’ lanes, woodlands, small hills and glorious scenery.
And even if I didn’t have time for that a trip to the local supermarket was a stroll under beautiful trees, past quaint brick houses (and maybe a petrol station or two), over a canal, along a river. Everywhere was nature.

Here in California it’s a different story. I’m living in a city, a concrete jungle, everything is spread out and nothing is a walk away. If I am going on a walk one evening, it’s around neighbourhood streets, past homeless men and along rows of telephone poles. There is nothing quaint, historic or beautiful about this place. Unless you happen to be out at sunset, that can be quite marvellous.

So I’ve been quite keen to try out hiking here, clearly a street walk won’t fill any void but maybe the secret lies within the hiking trails. This book is split into three sections, Coastal, Foothills and Mountain hikes each range from easy to moderate and they cover a wide variety of content, some are nature based in national parts, others lead you to historical places or encourage you to look for fossils, or, like the one we started with, send you on an animal hunt.

The first walk of the book is super easy, it’s in Seal Beach and along a bike trail next to the river. Looking ahead the scenery isn’t obviously beautiful, it’s a power plant.

But!

Because of the power plant draining it’s hot water into the river the temperature has risen and allowed for turtles to inhabit the place. There’s also wrens, hawks, ducks, fish and the possibility of seals in the river too so the entire time you are encouraged to keep and eye on the water and every ripple gets you excited.
Now I’ll be honest, it was no hike in the highlands of Scotland. It was a heavily used hike, in fact I won’t even call it a hike, it was a walk. Along tarmac. With quite a lot of rubbish on the banks. And a couple of homeless people in the way.

One thing I always loved about walking in the UK was that feeling of who may have walked before you, what their story was, were they running from an argument, meeting a lover for a secret rendezvous. And when was it first walked along. There was no replacement for that feeling of walking in another’s footsteps on this walk. Though I suppose this one was about turtles, not history, and in America you can’t have both because Native American’s didn’t walk on tarmac.

Friends Forever?

Today I met up with a friend I haven’t seen in about six weeks. There was a point when we were seeing each other five times a week and then filling in every mundane missed moment with Facebook chat and long text messaging sessions.

The sad thing is the in the six weeks I didn’t miss her.

We met while we were both working at a juice bar, when I was the fresh single girl in a group of coupled up friends and she was the first of hers to be old enough to take on the local club scene. It was the perfect match. I’m two or three years older than her and after a few months I was tired of the re-living the nights I’d spent in clubs as an 18 year old while she was just getting into it. Thus, our friendship evolved to film nights, culinary experiments and helping her find a steady boyfriend.

She actually met her First Love the same night I met my now fiance which could have been a lovely detail if it had all worked out. Unfortunately, six months later they were broken up, she was inconsolable and I was there with cake and tissues. I said all the nice things, I put on sloppy love films to cry along with and I made sure I was available for texting her when she was feeling glum.

Our friendship changed again, into a sister-type thing. Well maybe more adult and child. A month prior to her break up her dad had immigrated to America with his new family leaving her behind with a less than perfect relationship with her mum.

Then it got hard. Our friendship was four years old, we had survived a work relationship where I was her superior, two break ups [one a piece], three months separated by an ocean and somewhere in there she had lost her spark. We no longer sat giggling and gossiping, instead she was on her phone texting anyone else. We no longer bonded over cute love stories, cynicism had become a default setting of hers. We no longer played around in the kitchen together, she was bored of baking after picking it as a career. We no longer did, well, anything.

To be completely blunt, she’d become selfish and self obsessed. She’d been through a rough few months and was still quite young. A first heartbreak is horrid enough without it coming four weeks after your dad leaves the country. The problem was; she began to love the attention. And when there was nothing to get attention for anymore she became dramatic.

She’s just in her early 20s, she’s no longer the fun teenager I used to party with, laugh with, cry with, eat with, she’s shaping into the adult she will be and I’m struggling to see how we fit into each other’s lives anymore. It was nice to see her today, to have a little catch up and chin wag. I hope we can stay in touch and maybe fit into each others lives again one day but for now we are headed in separate directions.

When I first experienced a drifting friendship I panicked. Losing the closeness I had shared with my best friend in high school was heartbreakingly sad. No one had told me this would happen. No one had warned me than you had to work hard to keep the friendship going when you didn’t have that common ground anymore. By the time we realised what had happened it was a bit too late, we’d both moved on too much and got caught up with first boyfriends, college work and different music scenes – something I had never imagined would happen! We still catch up every now and again, but having drifted from being as close as sisters to mere acquaintances is upsetting and the elephant in the room every time we speak.

That’s what life is like though. Not all friends are needed forever. Whether it’s someone to travel the world with before you settle at different ends of the country, or a girl to bond with over a geeky past time, like all other relationships friendships can have an expiration date stamped on them without you even realising it.

I am lucky. I do have two friends for life that I just know that I’ll be catching up with when I visit home from California and I just know it’ll be like no time has passed.

I count myself lucky for that.

And for all the friends who shared some part of my life so far and, at that moment, been the reason I was laughing so loudly, feeling so excited or shaking off tears. It’s made me who I am and placed me where I am, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.

Apart from in Rus’ bed. Obvs.

 

Best Marigold Exotic Hotel

A film I have wanted to watch since it’s cinema release waybackwhen.

Today I went to my sister’s to dog sit for a few hours. I took my blanket to crochet as I sat on her leather reclining sofa and had the luxury of Sky television all to myself.

I’m not a huge tele fan, I watch a few things [period dramas and Emmerdale] nearly religiously, but I adore films. Sitting down for a couple of hours and getting a little insight into another life or time is my method of relaxation. I prefer dramas and love stories. While I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings as a teenager, I much prefer stories that could have actually happened to tales of elves and aliens.

This is not a review, but I will say the Marigold Exotic Hotel is a good film. Nice British humour, a subtle love story, a little heart ache. Not deep, not heavy, just lovely.

I have always had itchy feet, a desire to travel and see the world. Rus, my beloved fiance, is a bit more practical. If I had not met him I would be in Asia right now, frittering away money and loving every second of it without a second thought about when I’m old and need savings. Rus thinks about these things and one of the compromises I have made in this relationship is that there will be no major travelling yet. And that’s fine, I would rather spend two weeks on ‘vacation’ with Rus than two years any where without him.

However, I am a little concerned that when I’m older I’ll be too set in my ways to want to pack up and go. Everyone goes travelling in their 20s – who wants to. Not so many 60 year olds were in the hostels I’ve stopped in.

This film helped set my mind at ease for my vague old lady travels. And it made me excited about it. Truth be told, I am a bit of a worrier. And knowing everything is taken care of will make my travels more fun anyways!

At 25 everything to me is kind of exciting. I have a very young mind, I’m told. I’m curious about everything around me and, since being with Rus, don’t feel such an urge to rush off and see everything. Instead I’ll enjoy new experiences that are local, perfect my yoga skills, practice new dishes in the kitchen, build a home and enjoy the simple things now. Enjoy taking a mini break to a nearby city, enjoy a two week break to Europe, stay up late partying in LA and gather a group of fantastic friends.

Then, when I’m retired I can go crazy.

Look for me in Thailand with the students, I’ll be the 70 year old flying high!

Don’t worry, be happy.

Such a simple notion that I am really trying to do at this point in my life but, being a natural worrier, it is hard!

Rus and I got our Notice of Action through from Homeland Security. In basic terms it means that all the paperwork is in order and everything has been sent to London to be completed. In more basic terms, just four months [max!] until I pack up and leave England, my family and my dogs behind.

I really want to be deliriously happy.

Or rather I want to be only happy.

I just cannot stop worrying!

The day we got the news I could feel the weight of my ‘what if they don’t approve us?’ worry being alleviated. Only to be replaced a few hours later with an entirely new list of worries.

Each one more ridiculous than the last.

I cannot wait to be with Rus full time, I just wish it didn’t have to be an either or situation.

 

After all, I do love broccoli.

One thing I love about being British is knowing that we have the best animal welfare laws in the world. This was a fact I held on to tightly when four years of a vegetarian diet made me so ill I had to pick up meat eating habits again.
But really, it’s a best of a bad bunch situation and with my move to american drawing closer and closer I have been thinking more and more that I really should try and give up meat again. Because let’s be honest, America will probably have the worse animal welfare laws with their huge intensive farming.
Tonight one of my facebook friends shared this link so tomorrow I will give up meat.
Any useful blogs or recipes? Please feel free to help me out!