Monthly Archive: November 2016

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The taming of territory

First visit to Southern California’s San Marcos was 13 years ago in 2003. What looked like a new town about twelve miles inland from the Pacific Ocean was designated then as a city that would grow – and grow it has. Settled by the Spanish in 1840 San Marcos was a few farms scattered across a broad flat bottomed valley.  The railway arrived in 1887 and water was first pumped to the valley from the Colorado River in 1956, at...

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Thanksgiving ingredients

In the build up to the last-Thursday-in-November-festive-feast there are several traditional ingredients. First, the schools have a week’s break. (Think half term nightmare for working parents). Children whose parents are at work will go to Camp (holiday supervision) unless there are other family members to care for them. Down at Balboa Park in San Diego on Tuesday both forms of childcare were apparent. When a YMCA leader was shepherding his flock away from the play park         ...

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Reunions

November trips to California are as much about reunions with the family as they are about the Thanksgiving celebrations. This year though there has been an additional reunion. 64 years ago on the west coast of Wales two small four year old boys started school together, their birthdays just one day apart. They progressed through school (and Air Cadets) together, last seeing each other at age 18 as their schooldays ended. Fifty years later, on the west coast of the...

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Not quite as expected…

The morning after touchdown at LAX the Cleddau crew were awake and functioning well before dawn     – the effect of an eight hour time difference on the body clock. Aeroplane fans would have appreciated the view from the hotel bedroom window of aircraft movements along the busy Los Angeles runways.   After a leisurely hotel breakfast Operation Car Pick Up had to get under way. The baggage was lumbered back into a hotel courtesy bus to return to...

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Keep calm – and carry on

5,500 miles is a long way to go to deliver a message– but, mission achieved. “Anything you want me to tell them?” Boatwif had asked the Cheshire One. She, mind on her imminent birthday and her responsibility to deliver the meaning of precarious to her classmates (Vocabulary Enrichment Day), had kept it brief. Preceding departure to Southern California there had been the familiar scramble of assembling summer weight clothes and preferred import items.  Several of the above are from the...