The last couple of days have been wonderful, the weather not so much, but the people I am staying with treat me like family, they are such lovely people, two ex-doctors, the lady is very interested in natural health and treating the whole person, they are very interesting and have very interesting lives and families, I have spent a lot of time chatting to them both and we have a lot in common.
On the first day I helped them weed the garden, they have a small vineyard and they told me the grapes pretty much look after themselves but they are landscaping and developing their garden all the time, they have plenty of fruit trees, a vegetable patch, lots of flowers etc., it is a wonderful home too with beautiful views. Yesterday the weather was ok and very sunny in the afternoon, I had to take my cardigan off to weed it was so hot, the peace and tranquility is only spoilt by the odd appearance of a small plane flying into Healdsburg small airport nearby.
The beauty of these warm countries is the extra special things that happen in nature, there were hummingbirds buzzing around the Montbretia, lizards scurrying along the vegetable patch and plenty of bees making honey. The lemon tree outside my room is so full of lemons it looks like it will collapse under the strain.
The lady of the house is very much into eating healthy foods and eating home cooked foods, she made a lovely Philipino curry with Quinoa for our meal today.
During the afternoon the man of the house took me in the pickup to the lumber yard to fetch supplies for the landscapers doing the garden, it was a lovely spin into the town of Healdsburg where lots of Redwood trees grow along the roadside, not as big as the Giants but only because they are so young, but still very impressive.
Today there was rain forecast so they took me to Santa Rosa to do some food shopping and told me to choose whatever I needed. We went to Trader Joes, a huge health food shop, the variety of different health foods there is amazing, the juices alone are wonderful, so many different fruits and healthy organic fermented drinks too. They stock everything you need for a healthy diet. The lady told me that in California more-so than other parts of USA the people are very health conscious so Trader Joes is a busy supermarket.
Bought the apple juice but not the Dorritos, how about the size of that pack? Enormous!!
We then went to Costco, a warehouse bulk buying type of shop, my hosts pay for membership cards to enable them to use this shop and while we were there they got me a cash card for petrol when I hire my car in the next couple of weeks.
They say everything is bigger in the USA!!
We went home and had a lovely lunch of fresh chicken, kale salad with pumpkin seeds and cranberries and sauerkraut bought from the supermarket with delicious apple juice, called cider over here.
Massive muffins!!
Next the man of the house took me to the wineries in the area where all the tourists go for wine-tasting. See the next installment for the amazing photos of these fantastic wineries.
The sign on my bedroom door!!! LOL!!