Just a quick note to celebrate the first day of my visit to see Robin and Jamie. After a 10am departure from LHR-T5 on BA279 (all rather civilised) I arrived at LAX at before 1pm local time courtesy of this sky-chariot.

It took over an hour to get collect baggage and clear customs, but eventually I got through and was able to  join Robin on US soil for the first time in 18 months. Late October it may be, but I was whooshed to Robin’s home in the E30 325i convertible with the top down, and what fun it was! Here’s a photo of Robin’s car back at his house:

And here are some photos I took on the way there:

After a brief stop at Robin’s house to touch and feel everything that I’d already seen by Skype and blog post, we headed off to meet Mary and the highly amusing Edmund at the Rose tree cottage – a traditional English tea room.  Having sampled what I’m sure is the finest tea on this continent, we moved on to Pasadena, and visited Lucky Baldwin’s English bar. This place was littered with the flag of St George, and served plenty of ales – although it did remind me rather more of a continental bar than an English pub.

From there we moved on to ‘King Tacos’ – where we sampled some cuisine which looked like this:

Despite its appearance, it was extremely tasty, and cheap too! We then retired to Robin’s to catch up with Jamie, where I’m writing this blog post. I’ve been up for over 24 hours now – it could well be time to retire. I hope to report more tomorrow!