Life and Times in SoCal

Hello and thanks for coming back to our website. As I mentioned before, for 6 weeks during February and March I was a “single” man. I’m happy to say I managed to live and prosper getting lots of things done and without managing to go mad or any more mad!

Julie and I have decided that this is the best way for us to manage our time back to the UK. Julie is now semi retired so she can get back for an extended time, where I come back for a few days and bring her home. We are doing this in November when Julie will be back for just over 2 weeks and I will be back at the end of her stay for about 6 days.

As I mentioned last time Julie and I enjoy going to concerts so now we have started our “Summer of Music”. We went to see Sting in Las Vegas over easter. I must admit this was a great concert, he sang lots of his popular back catalogue both with The Police and as a solo artist. I have just booked us back to Vegas to see Maroon 5, Van Morrison and U2 not all at the same weekend! but over the summer through to September. We are also seeing Ringo Starr on May 19 at a local casino - Pechanga. We will be seeing my brother's favorite, The Zac Brown Band in September in Irvine, so just 30 mins down the road. I have also booked tickets to see Coldplay in San Diego and Boy George and Culture Club at the Hollywood Bowl.

The other achievement I have accomplished is, I finally fixed our spa. So now we have a spa that works and I have a happy life!

Chris, Wendy and their friend Lisa are due here for a few days as they fly back from Hawaii in late May. Hopefully the weather will be more settled and they can have a few days in our pool relaxing. I thought the weather had turned and we were getting ready for summer but we have had another couple of days of rain and cool temperatures, but this followed a really hot weekend and high temperatures. It’s difficult to know what to wear, shorts or sweaters!

We also have Julie’s elder daughter coming out in mid June for 2 weeks and my son Jordan and his family at the end of June for 2 weeks so we are looking at a busy first half of summer. Carys and Jordan will be here for the 4th July weekend so we are having a pool party with other friends and neighbors, I’m looking forward to it, hotdogs, burgers and steaks on the grill, with corn on the cob and all the fixings. Having family here will be a great way to celebrate America’s birthday. 

Carys has said she wants to go whale watching, this truly is one of the highlights of SoCal. Yes there is Disneyland and Universal but in my opinion it's the natural “wonders” of SoCal from sea to mountains and deserts that are the real attractions. There are not many places in the world that you can go snow skiing in the morning and surfing in the afternoon on the same day! This year because of all the snow in the mountains the ski resorts will be operating until mid July!!!

We were up early on May 6, to watch the coronation of King Charles III, apart from the weather it looked like a great day and from an American point of view it really did show the UK off as a great place for pomp and circumstance. I have had lots of friends ask me about traveling to the UK and places to visit because of that and now that travel is totally unrestricted I’m sure some of my friends will make the trip. As you may also have read the US has now dropped all restrictions to visitors to the US regardless of vaccination status, I must say that this is about time, we have friends and family in the UK and Europe who are wanting to come out here and visit both us and the country, so from me Welcome Back, We are Open.

I am now in the last 6 months of the lease on my Tesla Model Y.  As user of a main stream EV for over 2 years I think I am now in a position to comment of my experience of driving and living with an EV. Yes that are some changes to mindset and driving that have to be taken in to account. First of all its is much easier to own and charge if you have a driveway and can charge at home, I charge at home and I installed a charger at work so always having access was easy. The tesla supercharger network is also first class, but that is based on California and the western US in general. I am never more than 50 miles from a supercharger. I have only had “range anxiety” once, that was back at the very beginning when I was unsure about what the real range was.  There was a lot of talk about the build quality of Tesla’s and I would agree, there is lots that could be improved, however it has not stopped my enjoyment of the car. A big issue is how the car wears through tires (tyres). In 30,000 miles I have gone through 2 sets of back tire and almost 1 set of fronts. to make matter worse Tesla specify a specific type of tire for their cars which are more expensive - go figure! you can put on “normal” tire but it does effect the ride quality. 

In wrapping up, as always if you are interested in a vacation to SoCal please feel free to get in touch, we have family and friends “booked” in for this year and even next year. We are always happy to have people stay either for the duration or as a base to explore, just remember California is larger than the UK and SoCal is just about as big as Wales, with much worse traffic, but fewer sheep!

Thanks for reading, until next time

Ciao

Paul & Julie

May 2023