Halloween Parade at Fox

The youngest classes get to walk the school perimeter with onlooking older ones clapping and cheering, though sadly M's class were kept indoors for lessons and this was the only time it will happen... the rare apple blossom and her ladybug teacher and friends.

Back home the pumpkin trawl was lit up for the night ahead.

5 x 5, Washington DC

A grey day in DC with low expectations of what this public art festival might bring... Down at Navy Yards in the brisk breeze I eventually saw the giant doors on this shed being slid open to reveal an amazing post-Olympic installation that marks a moment of 1968 black power and looks quite fabulous in itself, amongst the rising chic apartments and river walkways.

Then across the river into Anacosta, an area of deep social deprivation however there is vision too and the Gateway Pavilion by Davis Brody Bond architects was quite startling stylish, sympathetically human and a nightmare to locate! The tables, benches and stages were made of palette layers that could be re-stacked for whatever purpose you fancied.

British Bulldogs on Hanover

These are truly British owned bulldogs with soppy hearts. The hugging usually happens on our stroll back from school, when these guys are lounging on their porch.

Pumpkin Patch, East RVA

A new venue for the gathering of the season's most inedible fruit and this lot were lain out (not grown!) in a field, under some electricity pylons!

The tractor ride took us through a spooky tin garage and was kind of fun. The best bit though was the hay bail maze that didn't actually have a centre point.

School Uniform on Floyd

Sunday in RVA

Just a lazy, autumny Sunday that included a soup picnic by the lake and then an intense ballet show about hispanic woman who lived through history to become icons of freedom. P&J did DIY instead.

Heart Fence at Fox

Pinterest and someone in Brooklyn inspired this communal bit of loveliness at the Fall Festival, with a cowboy, fox, Grim Reaper, Dracula and numerous others.

Lots of yarn aka wool-winding and then unravelling and some serious focus required from those who stuck the course - age was not the barrier, some (unsavoury) fluffy wool additions - that the kids loved and no-one stopped weaving 'till dark!

Halloween Costumes 2014

The year of Dracula and a rare apple flower. No prizes but fake blood a winner.

Watts Towers, Watts LA

One man, who could tile and had a childhood memory of processions through a small Italian town of folks holding up swaying structures, built this between 1921 and 1954 from amongst other things - old bottles of pop & milk of magnesia, broken pottery, railroad off-cuts and shells - then left the area, never to see it again but always willing to talk about it to anyone who would listen...

West Coast Food

The top culinary delights of the trip...
1. Lily's tacos and fish & chips on PCH (pic)
2. Farmer's Daughter evening burger & their breakfast french toast! (pic)
3. Nordstrom's Amelia cocktail

The other highlights...
- Museum of Jurassic Technology's almond biscuits
- The Hammer's rooibos
- Howdy's salmon & quinoa take-out

The LA 'cultural' essentials...
- BOA's steak n Barbie Doll cliental!
- Roscoes' fried chicken and waffles, frequented by a passing Obama

Machine Project, Echo Park, LA

Sometimes the destination proves as great as the expectation. Machine Project has it all... post-disciplinary without pretension, intelligent without earnestness, humorous without daftness, challenging without being unhinged and ultimately completely genuine.

Go Mark Allen and your crew of lovely people. You were worth the air turbulence and the freeway insanity.

On the other hand, some destinations deserve their trip advisor reviews. I do like a trailer, miniature or life-size (bottom pic) and an amazing almond biscuit with my black tea, however they can not compensate for off beatness turned meglomania.

The Hammer, LA

This might be my new favorite art gallery in America, with its dappled courtyard cafe, table tennis sun-deck and the shows - all fabulous. At this moment the photo-jumbling and provocations of Robert Heineken and the repurposed delights of Jim Hodges.

We came back for the weekly mindfulness moment and then left slowly... Petroleum investments really can get you to very great places.

Getty Centre, LA

Seriously?! Built on the top of a hill, in an earthquake zone, with it's own funicular railway and a scale that includes 5 major buildings and parkland... We focussed in on some sketching and a stroll by the babbling brook, that was running!

On Location, Paradise Cove

Well if you see an Ad with a fabulous hole-digging Weimaraner and some young, casually and neutrally clad folk on a jeep, on a beech with bottles of coloured pop, surf boards and a guitar in hand - then this is their shoot. We think Gap but maybe not...

... and if you go to the University with the view then your sports team is the Waves and this is their mascot trailer.

Sunrise at Pepperdine

Sunrise from The Heroes Garden Pepperdine, a peaceful 9/11 memorial, where the water is not running in the fountains due to the drought and in the amazingly stillness, deer crunch by.

I got to jog across the mesa alone at dawn the next day, to a point where someone had placed a metal bench with an extraordinary view - sparkling ocean either way and the cars on the Pacific Coast Highway glinting and with a faint hum below. My route back was a bit unclear but I figured I couldn't come to much harm that close to civilisation...

Paradise Cove, Malibu

After a hard morning locating and then shopping at our favourite home goods store (Target!) it was down to the cove for some beach bar refreshment and a rest or a run... in my case dodging three film and photo shoots, one yelling 'Cut!' and thumbs-upping my progress as I graced the shoreline.

The View, Pepperdine

It's got to be the University with the best view in America.

Eames House, Pacific Palisades

Seeing this house has been a bit of a quest... set down a small drive, under gum trees on a steep slope with a view of the sparkling ocean, it is both modest and unbelievably stylish in all things. Now managed by a very earnest family trust who rope off the garden swing and insist you don't slip on the gum leaves, before leaving you in peace to wander the two prescribed walkways and peer in at what is a truly fabulous mid century home.

However returning to our car in this luxury neigbourhood we found a man jimming the door open. A firm greeting from us and he muttered some excuse about mistaking ours for a friend's car and then cycled off into the distance, as we digested the potential crime scene.

Rocks & Murals, LA

A giant lump of rock outside LACMA. Conceived in '69 realized in 2012. Wow, that was some gestation period and it is a mighty levitated mass, though slightly dwarfed by the space around it and the sense of greater LA beyond.

For good scaling and fab gentrification check out this dumpster at the back of this CVS, Pacific Palisades - there is nothing like a kitschy mural, nothing in the lot.

Family Day, 1708 Gallery

Drawing consequences for artists and us, plus a dash of 3-D lantern making - who needs a glitter ball? - and a birthday gift of lolly pop stick football team puppets for J's first solo party that afternoon. Industrious and lovely as ever...

Post-it Girls on Floyd

Sibling portraits on the favourite stationary item in this house...