I have spent the last week enjoying the great hospitality of my brother Brendan and his wife Barbara at their Newport Beach home. Photo of Brendan and Barbara and Erin and Tommy attached.

I've had a bit of a culture fest, visiting the Getty Museum and the Huntington Museum. Both have some great exhibits. I particularly enjoyed the paintings. You do wonder about some people - while in one of the portrait galleries at the Getty, I overheard one woman disappointedly saying "there are only people in here"(?). The Huntington also had a a wonderful botanical garden

I also took a three day trip north along the California coast, staying in a small town called Cambria. I visited Hearst Castle, which is an amazing place. It was built by William Randolph Hearst, the media tycoon, who worked on it for 28 years without finishing it. It is full of priceless European art and furnishings. The cult of celebrity was very apparent, with visitors showing as much interest in the illustrious guests that Hearst hosted as the art and treasures exhibited.

I drove further up the coast into the Big Sur area and as far as the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, where I saw the magical McWay Falls that emptied into a beautiful cove (see pictures). I also visited the Elephant Seal colony near San Simeon.

The following day, I returned to LA via the Sierra Madre Mountains and the Los Padres Forest (a just under three hundred mile drive). It was breathtaking and my I-Phone photos don't do it justice. Probably among the most glorious scenery I can ever remember seeing. It was also extremely remote. The silence , islolation and magnitude of the place were at the same time awe inspiring, exhilerating (and in honesty a bit scary for a city boy like me). I only came across two other cars in over forty miles of road.

Cheers for now