Easter Parade, Monument

Really the dogs (and guinea pigs) do come out in their bonnets and their owners too, then there are the competitions...

The real winner this year was the balloon lady - the girls queued without a murmur for over an hour! She delivered - Dorothy and a rose.

Easter 2013

Easter definitely starts at dawn... so we all bundled up and headed to Forest Hill Park with its pink sunrise glow before gently lightening grey. There were fast-paced hymns, sort of led by a ukelele, banjo, mini banjo and recorder, then a stirring sermon that went on and on, but there was still magic in the air.

Back on Floyd the Easter Bunny was quick. M found a reply to her EB-Helper application, before they both darted about gathering lots of tiny eggs, the odd gold bunny, some hard boiled gems and in the now blooming camellia bush - two cute felt bunnies from yesterday's shorn sheep.

On the breakfast table new egg cups and the bunny ear cozies and upstairs chocolate drop-droppings had been left beside our own scruffy bunny toy.

As the classic 1970s poem goes, 'The Easter Bunny brings eggs to us. / Last night I saw the Easter Bunny / Coming to my window / With a basket full of Easter eggs. / Some were chocolate and some were hard boiled / And he said a Happy Easter to you all.' by CVL, aged 8.

The Eggs...

... got blown and happily painted and the sun shone as they dried on the washing line. The colours dimmed to more sludgy hues on completion, but it's all about the process and the process was fab. No class of 19 this year or crazy design ambitions, well apart from the stars and stripes.

Southside, Richmond VA

A Farmer's Market with Mennonite doughnuts, live music, shorn sheep, spring sunshine and assorted eggs...

Up river, the wide open water at Pony Pasture with canoeists, flat picnic rocks, swooping birds and no bugs (yet!).

Dessert

The girls present ice cream on the skateboard... Guest No. 1 for 2013 was impressed as the sweet trolley was rolled out - mango, raspberry, golden caramel swirl, chocolate & coconut, pear and cookies & cream .

Carousel, Charlottesville

We love a carousel and this one is outdoors, parent-propelled and just sweet. Plus it's on a pedestrian High Street with nice cafes and second hand bookshops and vintage joys. 

The detail: Six painted aluminum horses that are 1910 Mangell’s castings of Marcus Illions carvings - he was deservedly renowned for them.

Ski Monday, Maymont

Another snow day and with a reluctant child, a hang-over and low-grey skies we eventually made it to out favorite slope. It was not all joy and whizzing about, there was a fair bit of trudging, grumbling and the odd frayed nerve but ultimately I got to do one mammoth run with J, then, just as we were about to leave, M finally embraced the opportunity!

Agecroft Hall and Virginia House, Windsor Farms

T'is the place to hear terrible accents...  It be a blend of ye olde English and Irishish. Volunteer wenches introduced medicinal garden herbs and brewing with hops and barley. The pies weren't real, neither was the wattle and daub (concrete!), however the river view, grassy maze and cottage gardens were very real and rather splendid.

Agecroft Hall was transported from Salford, apparently in Lincolnshire, by local shipping line owner Mr TC Williams Jr, to five minutes from our front door. Virginia House next door was a more charming, earlier stone concoction, though the statuary was in rather poor taste, not to the kids however.

St John's, Church Hill

St John's has a fabulous and impressive history... for me it's a sunset location for yoga, in a Parish Hall that feels rather like home. 

So the history: As tensions between Virginia and England grew in the 1770s, the assembly of the Second Virginia Convention was moved from the capital of Williamsburg to Richmond. St. John’s, the largest available public building in the City, was the site of the March 1775 meeting attended by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and other prominent Virginians who heard Patrick Henry’s stirring words, “Give me liberty or give me death.

Santa's stocking

An unseasonal craft project, that M saw through from start to finish, came to completion today as J's last gift. The blanket(ish) stitching is great and the care put into its styling... just perfect. It's now in the year cupboard awaiting its festive moment.

The Beach Party on Floyd

So the beach plan was washed away by the weather, instead an indoor assault course, freeze dance aka musical statues and free play were on the plan. Some donned safety gear to bash in nails into our children's carpentry work station (adult supervision might have been wise), whilst others bathed playmobil figures in our new poolside scene, complete with working shower and a slide. A few intrepid folks actually donned swimwear!

There was a fabulously flat Victoria Sponge (Oh Delia, we got the tin size wrong), pear sorbet cones (thank you Bev's), P's whole wheat bread, sugar snap peas and triumphant scotch eggs!

J wore silk throughout and loved it all. M would have preferred more ceremony around gift-opening and a dairy-indulging ice cream option.

The Light Box

An afternoon's carpentry and we have a birthday light box... so with sand, wooden blocks and sliced fruit, "A grape person called J, on the beach, in New York City" was produced.

# 13, Red Dragons

In a biting breeze we watched from the sidelines as M played her inaugural game of soccer with Coach Tom and the Red Dragons.

We swore this would never be us!

We cheered with non-verb statements and didn't keep score.

The Bay Lights

Our extra nights, thanks to the Eastern snow storm, meant we could be one of the first to see The Bay Lights in action. Leo Villareal amazing spilling of light up, down, along and all over the Bay Bridge - magical stuff with the odd yacht gliding by and a ferry chugging out on the dark waters.

Little Italy, Northbeach

There's the famous Mama's on Washington Square but we didn't queue, as Tony's Pizza opposite was more our style. We took to the sidewalk seating for a Californian (ricotta) and a New York (cheese) slices followed by a second trip to Alimento Deli for gelato - caramel, lemon and raspberry sorbet... The servings were stalled for the final, intense moments of European Cup football. Someone got promoted!

Russian Hill

I was trying to find Mrs Madrigal's steps - the wooden ones she chained herself too in one of Armistead Maupin's stories. We found Macondray Lane aka Barbary Lane, between the houses, with little ponds and palm trees and lush undergrowth and glimpses of the bay beyond.

Sampled a brief tram ride, walked down the crazy z-bended Lombardy Street and gazed into the loveliest community garden. This is a nice part of town!

Cabrillo Highway

Finally I got a view, heading North at 50mph along the Cabrillo Highway, beer and sunset beckoning on the cliffs of Half Moon Bay.

We'll be back Bean Hollow State Beach - this is the California we had been imagining.

New Brighton State Beach, Capitola

As long as you're on a premium pitch and look towards the ocean, this is an idyllic spot.  Look right and there are condos, look left and there are hulking RVs parked all along the shore. Far left gets weirder but interesting, with a giant, decaying concrete ship, moored since the 1920s - once a ballroom and dining venue, now a pelican haven.

Finally behind are more behemoth RVs, caged chihuahuas and satellite dishes and unfrequented ablution blocks, that make this spot a ghost town at night and and a tad daunting to those of us with more camping-style needs.

Natural Bridges, New Brighton & Seacliff State Park Beaches

There were seals and surfers and pelicans and driftwood. It was brisk but beautiful and we made a shelter of our own with a stick garden and then adopted the one below - J's birthday candle being the central feature. There were moments of complete peace.

Dodge Sportsman Adventure c. 1973

Here it is... c/o AirBnB - still in full working order and clearly well-loved but lacking in some modern safety features - restraints aka seat belts in the back and a suspension not really designed for the z-bend drop from Saratoga Gap to the forest floor below. In darkness we swooped downwards for over an hour, the eating-table fell on our knees and our bones were rattled and our minds frayed. Communicating with the driver over the engine roar was impossible. We did three nights before yielding to the lure of a sweet B&B with hot water and sheets.

Big Basin Redwoods

Down in the woods things were impressively large... no bears or raccoons on our watch, just woodpeckers pecking and crested blue jays and a lovely boy next door and a waterfall a small trek upwards and a stoked roaring fire on our return. We got a lift in a ranger van thanks to our battery going flat and embraced the great American wilderness and the complementing joys of Boulder Creek - a former logging town with micro brewing, an organic market and DIY store that sold lanterns! What more does one need?

Bluebottle, SFMoMA

It's all about the cake! Can you spot your source works of art? We were here thanks to this book and a desire to combine the best coffee in town with the ultimate ganache. Sculpture courtyard lovely too.

Mondrian Cake
White Velvet Cake, red, yellow, blue velvet cake, chocolate ganache
“Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow,” 1930

Albers Cracker + Cheese

Buttermilk cracker, Vella Daisy cheddar, parmesan cream wafer, Lambchopper goat Gouda
“Homage to the Square: Starting,” 1968

Thiebaud Layer Cake
Butter cake, strawberry buttercream, lemon curd
“Display Cakes”, 1971