Day 20 August 8th Well it had finally arrived, the last day of our big adventure. We met the day with a mixed bag of feelings. Part 'let's get packed and organised', part sad, part happy (that part was mostly Derry!). Unfortunately the start was less momentous than desired, being woken by the strains of the trash lorries outside emptying holidaymakers' rubbish...including ours which we'd dumped late last night; several cardboard boxes and spare packaging so the...

Day 18 weds 6th This was our last day in Santa Barbara, and there was definitely the feeling of 'the last few days' as we began to organise ourselves for the end of the trip and the last packing before the big one! Naturally, after all this shopping, the last thing we needed to do was to go buy stuff...OK that was the theory but there were just one or two things we'd spotted along the way and decided to pop out to get! What a mistake that was! We'd left Sien...

Day 15 Sunday 3rd Leaving the duncans was always going to be tough. After all, we've had free admission to a pool all week! We had a fairy normal morning, which meant we didn't really get packing and moving on cleaning the room up until after 9. So the 11 am target departure was never really going to happen, was it? It seemed to take an age - and rightly so, we'd spread all over the house and unlike staying with UK friends, the chances of getting our stuff back...

The next 2 days at Ojai went quietly and continued our 'feel good' mood as we contemplated a possible Californian lifestyle with every additional glass! Sarah had a dental appointment so Suzanne and I were in charge; well, we were there, but hardly in charge as we barely saw the kids all day! Derry and Isabella decamped to Izzy's room and we didn't see hide nor hair for the next 4 hours. Partly it was because we couldn't get into the room, having been blockaded w...

The next 4 days - Monday 28th to Friday 1st - were a bit of a blur - but all thoroughly enjoyable - it started with a delightful breakfast pancake at the Ojai Emporium restaurant, where we all filled up with a good ol' US breakfast. That seemed to tee the whole lot of us up for the rest of the day, so after a visit to the park and shops, we went back to the house and just enjoyed ourselves for the rest of the day. The day finished with a youth sleepover - or at ...