In order to see a video of the Rich versus Joanna boxing match, click HERE.

Above: Our rear bedroom, this weekend. Much of the rest of the house is being worked on, too.

We are back in England and back to work. Here are some photos of our trip to California.

First, we visited Palm Springs.

below: Matt and Clare in the Palm Springs desert.

There we had Christmas dinner with the Beamans.

below: Verneda and Delores at Christmas dinner.


In Fairfield we visited the Jelly Belly factory.

below: Matt with a jelly bean mosaic
of Governor Schwarzenegger.


Clare shoved aside some little girls for a free sample. (Just kidding. Clare waited her turn.)

below: Girls in queue for free samples.


We visited a gold museum that does not recognise Wales.

below: Map showing 'England' written across Wales.

Pat and Diane showed us around the gold mine.

below: The gold mine.

We visited the Forneys. Kiara and Aria are so close in age that Bernadette sometimes has to check the dates on their photos in order to tell them apart.

below: Kiara mistakes herself for Aria in a recent computer photo. 'Aria!' she pointed.

We had Christmas dinner with Patricia Phelps at her house in Stockton.

below: Karen catches a football in Stockton.

In Contra Costa we visited two places that Peter and June would enjoy: John Muir's house and Mount Diablo.

below: Clare looks down on Contra Costa
from the top of Mount Diablo.

Pat and Diane treated us to a trip to the Mendocino area. We stayed in a wonderful hotel and had a great time. For a while, the weather was beautiful.

below: The Mendocino area, including a
sign warning of mountain lions.

Compared with England, the rain in California is less frequent. But when it rains, it rains long and hard. The people of California don't take shelter from the rain. Instead they just live with it for days on end. On this holiday we saw mud slides and flooding. Our trip north to the great redwoods was cancelled because the road was flooded.

below: Cars backed up on a flooded road
to the great redwoods.

Only a little dismayed, we headed south and visited some lesser redwoods.

below: A sign to the lesser redwoods.

The redwoods that we had intended to see are big enough to build a house inside. Indeed one of those trees, hollowed by a fire, contains a rather large house. The trees that we saw, by contrast, are much smaller.

Among the smaller trees, a man said to his wife, 'We have to get what we can take'. She answered, 'But I'm so disappointed!' They too had been heading north. But we ourselves were not so disappointed, because we liked Mendocino.

below: Matt drives through a lesser tree.

Overall the trip was a great success. We saw Matt's family and feel well rested.