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.

Ooops

I haven’t posted in a long time.

I got stressed and anxious and sitting at a computer was the last thing I wanted to be doing. The move kind of sprung itself on me, I had been working towards it for two years and then all of a sudden I was buying tickets and packing my bag and it was more than I could handle – packing up my life as my family are all getting set for a christmas together.

Rus had a few personal things going on in his own world, things that aren’t mine to mention here, but it meant he wasn’t around to chat that much and that certainly made it a lot harder.

I was going to just let the blog go, stop writing and switch to tumblr full time but that isn’t the place for long rambling posts and writing does make me feel… something. I don’t know how to describe it, it isn’t like I’m miserable and this is a place to let go, to release all my torment or anything like that because my life is pretty good right now. I guess I just enjoy it.

So I packed up stuff, kissed my parents farewell and hopped on a plane to LA. A week later I was married and that was a weird feeling. I store Rus in my phone as Husband! just to remind myself that yes that really happened (in a good way).

America is bizarre, it’s very similar to the UK – mainly because of the language, but then it’s very different – mainly because of the Americans. I’m settling in and it’s becoming more normal but I’m still pining for home in some ways. We cooked a big roast dinner on Christmas Eve, it was dark out, we had christmas pop music playing and it was hot in the kitchen so I opened the door sincerely expecting to be hit by that wall of cold air, so cold it catches in the back of your throat and makes your chest feel damp.

Instead it was warmer outside than in the kitchen.

When things like that happen and catch me unawares I want to go and sit on my bed and close the curtains and take a nap. But I don’t, I power through and hope no one notices the lump in my throat.

So I’m hoping writing will help me straighten out any sad feelings in my head, help me document any fun things we do and also give me a bit of a hobby. I can’t work for quite a while and, living with his parents, I have very few household chores to do.

It’s a good job you don’t believe in signs…

My best friend muttered these words to me as we sat eating hot wings in TGIFridays about a week ago.

I’d just finished my rant on the American Government Close Down and having no idea what was happening with my visa. The website said embassy was still open to serve American citizens, I am not one of those but this is kind of serving Rus so maybe it counted. To be honest, when something is worrying me I do a great job of sticking my head in the sand. I worry and fret and freak out but I don’t actually do anything proactive. Because while I’m fretting but not googling they’re all still, technically irrational worries. Once I have confirmation that I’m right, that’s when the real problems began.

So I looked on the embassy website to answer questions people were throwing at me… I just didn’t look deep enough to get any real hard facts.

If I think about what my friend says I can’t help but laugh. I’m a logical person, I don’t believe in signs, yet even I must admit this could quite easily be seen as a string of DON’T DO THIS! signs from the off.
First the engagement ring didn’t fit, then the visa application got lost in the post and then when we are meters from the finish line the government closes down and everything comes to a stand still.

Everything is up and running again and in full swing. I called the Embassy call centre to try and find out what kind of delay I’m looking at, I really really want to be there for Rus’ birthday. The guy I spoke to on the phone, Jason he was called, told me that my file was last updated on the 11th October and an interview date should be through within a week… that’s by Tuesday! My vague calculations had me expecting one by tomorrow so it would seem I’m not actually behind at all, there has been no delay and I signed on for another month of work for absolutely no reason.

Thus I resolve I will STOP my habit of ignoring things, no more burying my head in the sand and choosing to just worry irrationally.

 

Number 44

Who is better…Leno or Letterman?

I don’t understand the question.

Google tells me these are American tele people.

YouTube shows me that neither is that great. Maybe it’s an american thing that I’ll just never understand. Like yams.

English tele hosts I enjoy include, but is not limited to, Alan Carr, Russell Howard, Jimmy Carr, Ant n Dec and Graham Norton.