Oceanside on a holiday weekend is a good place for people watching.The lifeguard huts might not be manned    (after all, this is winter now) but the beach is still busy. Post Thanksgiving last Friday some family groups gathered up their post-feast leftovers and headed for a beachside shelter for a beachside picnic. Park down near the pier ($4 for two hours) and you are well placed for fun... You can hire a bike (various types available)       or RENT ME (a beach chair) or RENT ME (a surf board).    Whether this surfer seen in action last week owned his board or had rented it was impossible to tell...  Take the walk out along the pier, a distance of about a third of a mile, and gaze down onto the foreshore. There are paddlers, bathers,     surfers and ball kickers.  Local TV news had reported unusually high tides - but this looked like an unusually low tide.  Just on the north side of the pier a great jump rope game was under way

– how long ago was it when you last skipped with a long rope...?

There’s a pretty steep incline up to the pier, which juts out into the Pacific Ocean. Concentrate too hard on the slope and you might miss this sign     - not one ever seen in coastal parts of the UK.Up on the pier was a busker,     strumming more or less tunefully. (Are pitch permits needed for busking at such a busy location...?)However, further along the pier are the real entertainers – the pelicans. They are big birds which pose     and perch      and squat     and stretch.  Duck if a squadron of pelicans flies low overhead, on the lookout for a likely fishing catch. Walk the third of a mile distance (596 metres) to the end of Oceanside Pier and you find Ruby’s,      a fifties style diner. People congregate outside, awaiting their call to a table.  Around the back of the building serious anglers cast their lines, tossing small fry back into the ocean    – or feeding it to the pelicans.  Back by the beach people watchers can observe other ways of passing a sunny afternoon: “Let’s go fly a kite,”  may be the preferred lyrics for some folk     – but a song for a solo metal detector      user might be this  (I still haven’t found what I’m looking for).A  bench marched with this inscription      was a perfect spot for some more people watching, whether asleep,     or riding by in a show car     or walking a slack rope suspended between two palm trees.

A sea view is more complete with boats.  A mile or so further north is Oceanside Harbor.  Fish eateries line the harbour and compulsive shoppers can browse amongst clothing and gift lines in the lower portion of the lighthouse. The harbour is crammed with smart yachts,   but the only moving boat was a small pedalo... After a late crab patty lunch the sun began to sink down towards the Ocean     – and at the end of a lazy afternoon it was time to leave the coast and head back inland... Footnote: Oceanside is about 36 miles north of San Diego and about 78 miles south of Los Angeles.