Bolinas

Took S. there for the first time and he was enchanted - we was enchanted, old buildings, cobbled courtyards, lagoon, the beach and all the sculpture. Only worrying note was the people, old hippies and not wearing well, they looked stale and worried and short of cash, shacks not maintained but astronomical real estate prices. The trouble is it is trendy, and the old guard are dying off or just being squeezed out. Visitors were like us, no tourists at all, hardly surprising as the locals still take down the sign and reputedly torched the trendy garden of an enterpeneur who bought in. Bit like Wales.

I came back inspired by all the lovely bosky greenery up Point Reyes, it must be the constant sea mist I think. It occurred to me that I could build up soil from the lowest level of rock to make a garden so I started by cutting back all the entanglements over the boulders, keeping an eye out for furious raccoons from the catacombs below. The may etc was covering a dump of breeze blocks, bricks, cement and broken glass which did very nicely as fill for the new bed (except the glass of course), but one thing which diverted me was how extremely ENGLISH I felt while doing this. I hate the Marin way of bringing in a designer and a contractor and never doing anything hands-on.

I do need an awful lot of fill of course, before I even think of topsoil as there is no point in letting it wick salt from the highest tides, as it would. Love will find a way: I want more fruit trees and another rose just to begin.

I saw Lobsang while I was driving past Mill Valley, back from India and doing well, I hadn't his email so he will come to dinner and fill us in, sometime next week. Eileen will be here this weekend so I am gearing up for that, I am so looking forward to it. Oddly, we only just got the photos of Sarah and Rick's wedding in Boston, and I albumed them yesterday. Unflattering of me but I look suitably benign. I am ready to take on another wedding...

It is all interesting and engrossing and involving, I'm beginning to feel that I live here.

Spirit of Bolinas: http://www.coastalpost.com/97/11/6.htm (sorry, it wouldn't accept my link; copy and paste).