sent from: London, UK. destination: Marina del Rey, California, USA

Did not want to go to work today, everything rebelled against the notion. Crossing the concourse at Waterloo Station we passed a tall girl with a magnificent afro, and it made me feel somehow blessed, imbued with new energy. I was thinking about our weekend in Suffolk, a three-hour drive away, and of the relative same-ness of the English countryside that I’ve seen. There are differences, clearly, between Suffolk and, say, Devon, or The Cotswolds, but they’re subtle, told in degrees of green rather than big sweeping changes. Within 3 hours of Los Angeles you have the tallest mountains in the lower 48; desert with strange rocks, strange plants and even stranger creatures. Rolling grasslands, wine growing hillsides, and deep forests with redwoods like skyscrapers. From San Francisco you’ve got even more of those redwoods, craggy coastlines and one of the most dramatic sights on Earth, the Yosemite Valley. I’m trying to re-calibrate my brain to the subtler shades of grey, wishing I could add a little more salt and colour to the stew…