Bev & Dan kindly arranged for us to be up and out and about and down to Pacific Bay for our 10.20 coffee this morning, 3 years, and no, am not nagging him!

Changed plans from a big day in the city today, although we’re going in for dinner so might see the Big Orange Bridge on the way. We’re going to explore there tomorrow on our way down to San Jose for an ice hockey(!) game. So today we’ve wandered around Walnut a bit more and the Mister has been lapping up the attention from the lovely male shop assistants. And I didn’t mind waiting in this shop for ages while they checked the butt area of trousers he was trying on to gauge if they were the right size for him.

We’re here, 8.30 Thursday night and barely awake. The flight was OK – it’s always a bit turbulent over that big body of water so am only surviving on 4 hours sleep. After a bit of a separation blip with our plane seating we managed to secure upgrades to Business Class which was great – the only downside is that men lying down brings a greater chance of snoring – my god there were a couple of rattlers in our section.

This afternoon we got the best cup of coffee we’ve ever had in America and I drank it all the way to the bottom – obviously Bev and Dan know what good coffee is and have trained the people down the road at Pacific Bay to make a small, correct drinking temperature, coffee-flavoured beverages. We wandered through Walnut Creek and went to the latest Bond film – full of great action and hunky Daniel Craig and since eating pizza and drinking champagne we’re settled in to watch Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy and ER – lucky we’re all up to date watching it at home.

Tomorrow we’re off to visit the Big Orange Bridge.

Update next day: after a couple of texts and emails, to those of you wanting to know, yes, the James Bond movie was great! Loads of action, no nudieness, and that guy can drive anything – in the movie a couple of cars (yes the DBS was back in action), motorbike, plane and boat!