Brief Encounter

Garry Winogrand was a photographer in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s who took the most lovely photographs documenting American life. Among my favourite of his works is one taken at the airport in Los Angeles in the 60s.

I have a poster of it hanging in my hall which was given to me by a friend. Ever since I first saw the original 15 years ago I have wanted to drink cocktails at the bar in this photo. And on Saturday, that's just what we did!


What a fabulous place! Full of lava lamps and banquettes...




...and a Darth Vader beer tap...


... even the loo was quite wild...


All in all it made the long 8 hour lay over before the long long flight to Sydney well worth it.

We still had time to kill so we ended up in Santa Monica for a couple of hours. And I discovered that a little paparazzi action really does go with the territory in LA:








Okay, so he's not exactly Brangelina, but I have to say I was thrilled to see him, even if we missed the cooking demo. But then, that wasn't the point...

I had all sorts of plans about how many granny squares I was going to make on the flight. Fifteen hours with not much to do - I can only imagine the fab blankets the amazing women of blogland would whip up. Me? Well, here you are:



Two squares. I know; quite pathetic. But in my defence, I had to rip up the first one several times because I couldn't quite remember how the first round went and how it transitioned to the second, and I didn't have any nice videos to remind me. But I got there in the end. And I'm beginning to regret being so conservative in my colour choice. But never mind. I'm going to plough on and will consider this my practice run before I graduate to full multi-coloured crochet bliss.

Now we're in Sydney and I am stupid with tiredness.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody.


Cx