Kate Terence's Letters from London

Before I take you on our magical mystery tour down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, let me begin with a post script from last week.  We took a car journey onto Stunt Road last Sunday in the Monte Nido mountains, where the ascent was high enough to make my lungs tighten.  At the top, away from the harsh commerce of Los Angeles we saw one or two cars parked, the owners also taking in the magnificent view of the verdent canyon below.  Within moments a tiny, pretty little girl dressed in bright sugar-pink, possibly about seven years of age, approached us.  She had a tired, haunted look in her eyes.  She asked us if we would like to buy some of her lemonade for a dollar.  Her mother was standing by her car, and when the Captain asked her how much she was paying her daughter to do this, she replied that it was all her daughter’s idea, and that who was she to stop a “budding entrepreneur”.  So wherever you are in Los Angeles, even at the top of a deserted mountain, you will be sold to.  By children.  The film Papermoon comes to mind.

Another observation that actually acts as a strange comfort to me, is that it is clear to me that across the globe, no one likes to work at the post office.  The other day, standing in a queue that might have even shamed my local post office in Harringay, I waited patiently with the other customers for forty-five minutes to post my one letter.  Two people worked at the till, sullen and oblivious of the customers’ inconvenience.  It actually made me smile.  A cup of tea or beans-on-toast could not have made me feel more at home.  I wondered whether the staff had been trained in the UK.

So, the Captain and I have just returned from San Francisco.  We took the Pacific Coast Highway, where the blue of the sea contrasted against the oranges, greens and beiges of the sides of the hills in such a way that I was sure I had not seen hues of this sort before.  Our first destination was William Randolph Hearst’s castle.  He was the media mogul on which the film Citizen Kane was based.  Evidently he was not overly pleased with Orson Welles’ interpretion since allegedly they met in a lift at the Fairmount Hotel where Hearst declined a drink with the famous actor.

The Hearst’s Castle grounds are spectacular and are reached by coach since the road winds dangerously upwards to the gothic/ baroque/ rococco/ Disneyland that it is.  Inside the madly ecclectic collections of medieval and religiously themed furniture, we got a glimpse of what it may have been like to be Charlie Chaplin or Clark Gable being invited to keep company with Mr Hearst.  The guide treated the place as if it were an Italian Medieval church whereas I felt it was the home of a powerful, rich manipulative man blessed with many positive qualities, excluding taste.  Perhaps in a hundred years, Rupert Murdoch’s home will be equally honoured.

We stayed at the Best Western Hotel along the Central Coast, and expected a modest, if dull experience.  We received the exact opposite.  Although the restaurant was not a high point, the room with its ocean view, its own real fireplace and drinks cabinet delighted us.  Binoculars were provided to watch the whales and their extraordinary plumes as the sun set into the famous rusty orange against the cerulean sea.  The gin and tonic I drank that night on that little balcony will never taste the same again.

When we left the next day, The Big Country playing on our stereo courtesy of the Captain downloading all tracks pertinent to the USA, we could not believe more surprises were in store.  Ten minutes further along this coast we pulled over to watch Elephant Seals beaching out on their turf.  They groaned at each other like irritated muppets, their bodies rolling like thick bands of black oil when changing their sunbathing station.  The Captain and I tried to immitate them once we were back in the car, but too many people were watching us and looked like they might have tried to call the authorities to have us deported, so we stopped.

We carried on through the Big Sur, with landscape that is so beautiful that only seeing it yourself will provide you with the pleasure it gave me, as words cannot encompass the grandeur of the hills, the majesty of the trees, the azure of the sea, so simply take my advice and go there.  As the vista of San Francisco approached, the Captain changed the music tracks to Lalo Schifrin’s Dirty Harry which matched the environment perfectly.

It is true regarding what people say about San Francisco, the hills, the cable cars, the trams, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate, the eccentricity of its people and the chilly weather.  We stayed at the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental so as to get the best view of the city.  The Hotel is not what it once was, its stylish cocktail bar at the top being converted into a family friendly cafeteria, the rooms catering for corporate guests and weddings.  However, some new friends invited us to their artistic home and to a very sparkly cocktail bar called Martoonies, which served dry martinis the size of my head, followed by a four course meal at Chez Spencer, which was exceptional, if a little over-priced.  I did not enjoy, however, the prospect of walking in the streets at night.  The chances of stumbling on a person emptying his bowels in some corner or shooting heroin under the canopy of building works, while stepping over yet another homeless person saddened me to the extent that it placed such a pleasurable evening back in the section of the brain that dwells too frequently on guilt and the bleak miseries of the world.

With this middle class angst in mind, after a day of sight seeing and increasing awareness of the level of destitution scattered about San Francisco, we decided, ostrich-like, to take a taxi for our last meal out.  The place we had booked was darker and more hostile than we expected so we left, the Maitre-D, not noticing or caring about our departure. We took advice from a discreet and sensitive concierge at the Hilton, who booked us a table at the Farallon restaurant.  It turned out to be the best meal we have experienced in the entire California adventure.  The most exquisite seafood, dynamic employees who knew a thing or two about their passions, food and wine, and a clientele who we noticed were not unlike us: that being the old fashioned, old school fuddy- duddies who like to make a sartorial effort for an occasion.  We drank a wine made up of different grapes, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewurtztramminer and Riesling.  They described it as using an Alsation style, and it was from the Sonoma Scinitilla vineyards not too far from the city.  It is called Abraxas, and if you are ever in the vicinity, drink it, drink it, drink it.

My last words on this particular experience is that among the joys of this trip were the Captains thrilled face when a very sexy female motorcyclist breezed past with her bottom cheeks exposed , the belt of her jeans provocatively below the cleavage, a g-string reminding the onlooker to keep looking.  I had to wipe the drool from his mouth.  We also passed a self powered car on the way to SF, running on solar and other energy.  Good stuff really, although not so fast.  We also passed through Carmel, where Clint Eastwood had been Mayor.  He famously says ” In your own time” instead of “Action” when directing films, so the Captain and I muttered “In Your Own Time”  in his husky tones for at least an hour of that part of the journey.  And in our own time, we arrived back in sunny Santa Monica.