It’s Whale Weekend in Mendocino, and we’re passing through on our way to the Northernmost reaches of the California Coast, where the redwoods tower over sheer cliffs and crashing seas. We’ve stopped in a tiny coffee shop with internet access, where - what a surprise - there’s a dick on a mobile phone broadcasting his personal matters and opinions to the whole town. Apparently, there’s no need for a local radio station if you’ve got a bloke with a cellphone in the neighbourhood. Moron.

That aside, we’re having a good time on the road. The weather’s been changeable, swinging between glorious sunshine and big storms which sweep in heavy and dark from across the giant pacific, but we’ve been wandering on beaches, visiting wineries, taking photos, wiggling along tiny roads which cling to the sides of mountains and marvelling at the sheer (and I use the term with only a bit of irony) awesome bigness of it all. Also, we’ve been sleeping like babies - twelve hours a night, easy. Probably a good thing - and long overdue.

Feels like we’ve been away for ages. Feels like everything in London is very far away indeed - all those things I was stressed about before coming away seem very distant indeed.

There’ll be a lot of changes happening in my world soon, including one significant one: I’m moving jobs, leaving the company I’ve been with for eight and a hlaf years for pastures new. More about that in good time, I expect.

But for now, I’m enjoying a well-earned break away from everything except sea and sky and books and an itrip. Oh, and except morons with mobiles. Ah well, you can’t have everything…