John 2005
This year has been a bit extravagant with holidays for me, even more so than usual, I have been away for nine weeks.
The first trip was back to Los Angeles for one week at the CMEN gathering in Malibu. I then had a second week free in LA before return to UK. See below, September, for details since this was an almost identical holiday.
At the end of June my friend Anthony and I went to Peru for two weeks and two other friends from Guildford were on the same Explore Worldwide tour as well.
See http://www.explore.co.uk
It was very good and well organised and Explore are highly recommended. There were 18 on the tour total. It was an adventure tour with a well packed itinerary and lots to see and do so you were on the go for long days every day. A few unpleasant very early starts as well. The highlights were Arequipa, Lake Titicaca (with a night on an island out in the Lake), Cusco, from here we went to Machu Picchu for two days and finally Lima.
In August I went to Sweden for 10 days, the first stop was in Stockholm where I had three days to look around and visit the city, I stayed in a youth hostel which was only about £10/night and in a good central location and a very good breakfast included as well but the 40 bed dormitory was very basic. Another night I stayed in another youth hostel/hotel which was formerly Langholmen Prison, the cells had been converted very nicely to 4 bunk rooms.
After Stockholm I went about 40 miles North to Nortejalle where I stayed in a camp for a week. It was a very nice camp in a nice location on the edge of the Baltic and some nice hiking but after the first couple of days the weather turned very bad and I was ready to come home early unfortunately I couldn’t change my flights without vast expense so I had to wait it out.
The short time I have been home this summer has been totally full with domestic chores and managing the houses and gardens.
In September I went back to Los Angeles again for a very very enjoyable 3½ weeks holiday. I hired a car and for the first weekend I stayed with my friend Danny in Hollywood. We did some social events together and went to visit some of his friends. The following two weeks were at the CMEN gathering in a remote resort near Malibu, it was nice and relaxing, I met some friends from last year, spent a lot of time by or in the swimming pool enjoying the sunshine and quite often playing pool volleyball and also went off on a couple of hikes into the hills nearby. As well as the pool the rest of the resort was very pleasant in some nice wooded hills. I stayed in the hill house, a youth hostel style accommodation; it is about half Km from the pool.
After the gathering I stayed at a place out in the desert called Starland see http://www.starlandretreat.com/ about 50 miles North of Palm Springs, it is where all the stuff from the gathering is stored till the next year, I helped sort and clean all the stuff in return for four days staying there for free in the main hall. While at Starland I took a day out to go to Mt San Jacinto Wilderness Park, this is accessed from the Palm Springs Arial Tramway. In the park I went for a hike for six miles uphill along the trails to Mt San Jacinto summit almost 11000 ft and the second highest mountain in southern California.
I went out for another day trip to All Worlds Resort in Palm Springs, some of my friends were staying there so it was good to meet them.
I also spent a day with my friend Matrix in Los Angeles, his job is to maintain peoples private swimming pools in their back yards. We visited over 30 swimming pools in the one day and cleaned all the leaves, filters and stuff floating on the surface and checked the chemicals to be correct. We then had a nice meal and I stayed with him overnight.
Lastly I spent the final weekend of my holiday with my friend Danny who I stayed with the first weekend when I flew out. I went to the Los Angeles County Show for a very interesting day visit, then I flew home.
Life back home has been fairly normal since I returned from Los Angeles at the beginning of October. Three rooms have new tenants in who were all introduced to me from existing tenants.
Me at Mt San Jacinto Summit 28 Sept 2005
I haven't been away anywhere and just a couple of times I have been to a party in London or around and about and stayed overnight since I drunk too much to drive home.
I have a new and very much larger garden shed here at #8 delivered at the end of October, this is storing some furniture and there’s a new sunbed for all 11 of us to use as well. This enabled me to empty my box trailer which sold on eBay for £2100.
At the end of November I purchased an area of land 25’ x 43’ from my next door neighbours. It is located here between my two houses and at this time it is just a grass area. I hope to build a double garage there, however I thought it was important to buy it at least from the point of view that it stops anyone else buying it and it is nice to have the space here to spread out when the good weather comes.
Now it is almost Christmas and all the usual things like decorations, and parties etc. are taking up my time. Also 2006 is not far away. I have no idea what is in store for me next year but I won’t be away anything like so much, there’s lots of things on my to-do list here which I need some good weather to sort out.
I hope you have a very enjoyable Christmas.
Best wishes,
John
Go to 2006
