Land of the Squirrels

We are living with Lena's aunt and uncle in San Jose. Like Seattle, this part of the world was once covered by forest. In San Jose - redwood trees dominated. Today the Bay Area is a vast megalopolis consisting of grids of suburbs and only pockets of these mighty giants remain. You can however, see the odd redwood on a street.

The squirrels are still here though and very active right now as it's Spring. Imagine if squirrels had an oral history passed down through the generations in squirrelese. What would they be saying? Maybe, "Sure there's plenty of food now what with all these wasteful humans but I do miss the trees".

In the supermarket we were buying a bottle of wine for personal consumption. An elderly lady accosted us and asked where the Pinot wine was. We showed her a bottle of Pinot Noir from Australia. Her horrified reply was, "I was looking for something from California or Oregon. This is from Saath Orrstraalia!" To my South Australian readers, I can imagine your outrage reading this. I also showed her a Californian Pinot Grigio and explained to her what it was but she looked at me as if I had just climbed out of my alien spacecraft and vomited all over the broccoli in her shopping trolley.

Next as we were buying alcohol, the checkout lady asked me for my ID. I told her she was very kind to ask for my ID (it hasn't come up as a subject in this context for over twenty five years now) and she replied (rudely I thought), "We'll see how kind I am," as she minutely examined my Queensland driver's licence. She was quite polite afterwards. People are strange here or perhaps it's we who are the strange ones.

This is a winery we visited in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Scientists calculate that this is the average daily quantity of wine one needs to drink to avoid heart problems. I usually drink more than this to be safe.