Cali-forn-i-a

We found out early on Monday morning that due to some technical hitch we couldn't actually connect to the internet in the room. Thank god for Starbucks free wi-fi!! We gathered blackberries, laptops and headed downstairs to connect there. I went into get the coffee and Stephen set up shop. Its amazing how long you can stretch a coffee...I think I did a refill round after the 2nd hour of sitting there as I was getting paranoid that the staff were giving us looks!

When we'd done we packed up and headed off on a little tour of Mulholland Drive, Sunset Blvd and Rodeo Drive. Mulholland was really close by the hotel, so we plugged it into the SatNav and headed off. After the second or third "why is she taking us this way?" and "why does it say its 13 miles to Mulholland, its only up the road?" we decided to switch off the SatNav and go with KerryNav which turned out to be much more reliable!

We were intrigued by a filming crew on Rodeo Drive. They were filming two blondes in a white convertible Rolls Royce driving up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down the street. I have no idea who they were...I did think that one of them looked vaguely like Tori Spelling but I'm no expert on identifying the identikit blondes of Hollywood! We went onto Santa Monica and had lunch on the 3rd St Promenade before taking a quick walk along the pier which, unlike the last time we visited, was basking in sunshine and not being blown out to sea!

STOP PRESS: Have just done a little internet research. It WAS Tori Spelling and Jenni Garth filming the episode of Beverly Hills 90210 where Donna returns to the show.

We had to head back to Starbucks for another internet session in the afternoon. As we were sat there for hours I got to do a lot of people watching. There was a lot of screaming in the distance at one point, explained when around 10 paparazzi turned up and began plugging in their laptops and downloading their photos. The Jennifer Aniston movie "He's just not that into you" was premiering at Mann's Chinese Theatre just around the corner. The screams must have been the stars arriving. The movie premiere also caused Simon a bit of grief in getting to the hotel. The poor soul had had a horrendous journey from the UK. All the snow had meant that his BA flight was cancelled so he had to switch to Virgin. His car journey to Heathrow was very hairy and then he had to negotiate the road closures on the way to the hotel in LA. When I caught up with him, and Rudy and Fred he was (deservedly) throwing a G&T down his neck before we all headed out for dinner.

The guys had a meeting on Tuesday, so Stephen and I were up early to head to Starbucks in order to get the e-mails flowing. After about 4 hours I was caffeine-twitchy and getting getting sunburn so I dumped the laptop back in the room and went for a walk down Hollywood Blvd. It turned out to be a relatively quick walk as there were a lot of folks on the street hustling good naturedly to take photos (for a tip) and offering to make me famous. I retreated back to the mall and did a quick run round Sephora before grabbing a sandwich and finding a table in the sunshine at which to enjoy it. We were meeting up with the customers and their wives for dinner at a rather fabulous restaurant on Melrose Ave called Lucques. It was a little disconcerting to turn up and discover it was closed! Just as panic was beginning to set in we spotted staff wandering about in the back so it wasn't so much closed as just not opened yet! Greg and Alex were very charming and good company, and the food was truly excellent. We all had a quick drink at the bar of the hotel before either heading back to our rooms or, in the case of the two chaps, heading to the hole in the wall bar across the street until 2:30am! Its just as well Stephen drinks rats-p!ss light as I had to get him up at 7am for a 7:30am conference call.

We did our final mammoth stint at Starbucks on Wednesday morning. Stephen was appreciative of the caffeine and I was beginning to think that you can have too much of a grande latte good thing!!! Late morning we packed up and headed off for San Diego, stopping en-route in one of my absolutely favourite places, Laguna Beach. Its a gorgeous little town just south of Los Angeles and a haven for writers and artists. We met up with Simon and had lunch on the patio of a hotel facing onto the beach. Excellent food and excellent surroundings. I had to do a mad dash round the town when we realised that we hadn't bought a fridge magnet. Its obviously far too posh there to sell such touristy items and it took me about 4 shops before I could find one!!

We went from Laguna to my other favourite place - the Coronado hotel in San Diego. Its where they filmed Some Like it Hot (with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis) which is one of my all-time-favourite movies. We got royally ripped off on the parking though - $15 for 2 hours and its probably free to park on the street. Once you're in the parking lot there's not a lot of options open to you...you just have to suck it up and feel the pain in your wallet!!

Thursday morning was the BD call. Usually these are pretty quick affairs but this turned into a 3 hour marathon!! It is pretty easy to become distracted too - sometimes its difficult to make out whats being said when the rabble all talk at once. I did begin to drift a couple of times, but managed to regain focus by jabbing myself in the leg with a pen...anything to focus the mind!

The boys picked me up mid afternoon and we went to their favourite bar in LaJolla for a late lunch. It overlooks the sea and had a terrific view...when its not raining. Ho hum! I guess the fantastic weather couldn't last all week - that would have just been dull... The rain almost spoiled our night too. It started to pour as we were walking along to the Gaslamp district so we had to duck into Morton's bar for a drink until the squall passed. Unfortunately the waitress was the bitch from hell, hellbent on ignoring us, talking to her friends, and providing the worst service I've had anywhere in a very long time. We were making the "Will we eat here if it doesn't stop raining?" decision when there was a break in the rain and we decided that as she'd probably either spit in the food or fail to deliver it when it was warm, it was time to move on.

Friday was going to be something of a quiet day for me. Stephen and Simon had gone off for a meeting and I was left to my own devices. I was just heading down to the lobby with my laptop to let the maid clean the room when Stephen phoned to say that the chap whom they were meeting had invited me for lunch and his wife was driving down to get me. I about turned, walked the 10 yards back to the room (I really hadn't got far!) and got changed into something a little smarter. I was glad I did! This house was something else!! It had a 12 acre vineyard, an infinity pool and a 15 seat cinema!!!! Greg and Marsha were lovely and lunch was great.

It was rather unfortunate that I wasn't able to upgrade my seat on the return flight. Once again we had a crap seat and an even crapper seat!! We'd applied for upgrades to business to use up Stephen's many air miles, but the plane was full. This left me in economy at the very back of the plane beside the toilets and Stephen in Economy Plus up the front in not quite the lap of luxury, but more luxury than I had!!!