GETTING CHRISTMASSY

We went to our second roller derby yesterday, but unfortunately it was not as fun as the first. It was absolutely packed - which was weird, as there had been hardly anyone there the first time we went - so the atmosphere was good, but we discovered that the fun of the bout depends entirely on the quality of the MC.

Without a fast-talking, funny person on the microphone, keeping things exciting and whipping the crowd into a frenzy, the roller derby is a kind of lame spectacle of girls whizzing around a track on roller skates.

There were small mercies for which to be grateful for, though - this time we didn't see David and boring Jackie. But we did have to move seats because a kid was having great fun kicking my back incessantly. Aaahh.

There were two bouts - one with a visiting team from Philadelphia(?) - but we left halfway through the second one, in time to see 'Four Christmasses' in Chinatown. We'd been really looking forward to the movie - Witherspoon! Vaughn! Favreau! Chenoweth! - but unfortunately it was a little disappointing. Put it this way - it ain't no 'Role Models'. I wonder if anything ever could be...

I helped out at Sunday School this morning and was then grumpy to find that the church service marking the beginning of Advent was in the Taizé style. I don't much enjoy kooky ways of worshipping, but this ended up being a revelation. The mode of worship takes its name from a region of France where the tradition first started and is the most beautiful combination of stunningly simple chants and silence that is very moving and conducive to reflection. The form of worship evolved in WWII, as a way of bridging the divides between faiths and uniting religious people with a simple, lowest-common-denomiator kind of approach. It was a really amazing service.

I spent most of this afternoon toiling away on our Christmas cards, suddenly feeling an affinity with small children forced to do fiddly manual labour that is seemingly endless. Fie on you, PaperSource!

The memory of 'Four Christmasses' was roundly dispelled this evening, when we watched the wonderful 'Sabrina', which I've never seen before but absolutely loved. I'd never 'got' Humphrey Bogart before, having only seen him in 'Casablanca', but he was so great in this movie! And obviously Audrey Hepburn is incredible. It's a very close-run race for my favourite director ever: Frank Capra or Billy Wilder...

PHOTOS: THANKSGIVING

Click HERE for photos of our week in LA

THANKSGIVING

I'm not really sure we're meant to celebrate Thanksgiving - aren't people giving thanks for finally escaping from tyrannical British rule, back in the day?

Ah well, as a big fan of all things American, the offer to experience a proper family Thanksgiving was too good to pass up, so after I made some sticky parsnips this morning and then locked Tom's keys in the boot of his car, along with the many other dishes and gifts Bambi has been slaving over (whoops), we headed to Orange County - the OC! - to spend the day with the husband of Bambi's deceased aunt.

Turns out - and to be fair, I had been warned - that Orange County is nothing like the fancypants paradise depicted in 'The OC' on TV. The area we went to was kind of weird and suburban and we got lost in a maze of streets for quite some time.

Eventually we found the house and were very warmly welcomed by the masses of Bam's relatives who were there. Bambi had warned us that most people there would be pretty right wing and that we'd probably be better off avoiding politics as a subject and she wasn't wrong!

Most of the people were very conservative and Bam's uncle-by-marriage converted to Mormonism after the death of his wife and his family are very religious, with one of his daughters heading off to be a missionary in Florida for two years.

There were a couple of cute kids running around and a bunch of old people I didn't really talk to. It was nice to see Bambi's family and to chat to her Dad and brother and her Mum even joined me, jumping up and down on the huge trampoline we spotted in the back garden!

Everyone was terribly friendly and we felt very welcome as we worked our way down the seemingly endless line of dishes of meat, yams (yeay!), creamed corn (euch) and other Thanksgiving staples. Conversation did meander into politics over lunch, which revealed some interesting points of view, but it was all very amicable.

I didn't much warm to the husband of Bam's cousin, who repossesses cars for a living and likes it, or the husband of another of her cousins who asked us what we're going to do about the Muslim problem in London, referred to DC as 'a very dark city' and proudly talked about his love of guns and cars. But hey, it was all part of the experience!

Max and I had a nice time - probably more in an anthropological way than anything else - but I think Bam and Tom were relieved to leave. We watched the awesome 'Johnny Guitar' (top of their list of movies we should see) when we got home and then watched another film, too, but I fell asleep, as befits one who's gorged themselves on festive food all day.

This morning, we cruised down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) to a lovely beach called Paradise Cove, stopping off at Malibu Pier on the way. It was far too cold to lounge about at the beach, so we wandered up and down for a while and then had a deliciously enormous lunch that would keep Max and me going on the flight home. *sniff*

One consolation for leaving our fun friends/family was that 'Wall-E' was shown on the plane, once more managing to reduce Max and me to tears, despite being on one of those tiny communal screens (it's SO good!). And we also watched 'Journey To The Centre Of The Earth' which was in no way good, though we did chuckle when Brendan Fraser said, "Ladies and gentlemen [there are only two other people with him], I give you... the centre of the earth".

It was really late by the time we landed and the SuperShuttle ride home took FOREVER, adding insult to the injury of our fun (but cold) holiday being over.

BRRRR

SECOND EVER LA CELEB SPOT: I saw 'Simpsons' creator Matt Groening waiting to cross the road this afternoon!

It's soooo cooold in LA at the moment. And today, it rained! I packed entirely inappropriately for such a climate and am wearing the warmest outfit I have, which is unfortunately shorts and a t-shirt. Brrrr. Unfortunate for me, because I'm not warm, unfortunate for those around me because I've been wearing the same thing for days.

It's awesome, hanging out with Tom and Bambi - they're both excellent company and it's a real treat for me to hang with them and Maxy all together.

Tom had to work yesterday, at the frame-making workshop, so Bam kindly drove Max and I around the area. Again, we did lots that I did when I was here in the summer, but I didn't mind at all, because I really like LA now and it was nice to show familiar things to Max. So we hit Venice pier and Abbott Kinney, the cool street of shops that's like a fancy Chiswick High Street.

We swung by Tom's workshop to see where he worked and meet his crazy colleague who's covered in tattoos of monkeys. I made the mistake of making a 'get the monkey off your back' joke, only to have him say that he did that few years ago, when he got clean from heroin. Whoops.

We whisked Tom off for lunch at a nearby Chinese, before dropping him back at work and heading to the lovely Landmark cinema (with ushers! and sofas!) to see 'Slumdog Millionaire', to escape the pouring rain.

I really loved the movie. It was a great story and the child actors were adorable. And I thought Danny Boyle did a great job, making Mumbai larger-than-life, such that I could almost feel the heat and smell the smells of the streets and slums the camera was dashing through. The soundtrack was awesome, too.

Max and I were a bit on edge throughout, because the actor playing the lead - Dev Patel - is easily the worst and most wooden thing in 'Skins' - a Channel 4 series - and we weren't looking forward to watching him carry a film. But fortunately he didn't have much to do, so didn't spoil it for us. The guy playing the host of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' was hilarious - who wants to be... a millinaaaire?!

Last night, Tom and Bam treated us to Mexican at El Cholo - a restaurant they took me to in the summer and whose prawn fajitas I'd been dreaming about ever since. Mmmmm, SO good!

Over dinner, Tom and Bam compiled a list for us of cool old movies featuring women with moxie, that they think we'd enjoy. It was really fun, hearing all the crazy plots and watching them debate which films were worth putting on the list and I can't wait to start ordering them from NetFlix.

The whole conversation got me to thinking - the gift of knowledge really shouldn't be underestimated - that list that Tom and Bam have given us is going to last much longer than any Christmas present they could give us. I wonder if I could persuade my family that we should just give each other the gift of knowledge this year...!

Tom took today off work and the four of us spent this morning on a hazardous adventure, into the Projects of Watts, to see the Watts Towers. Bambi was not on board with this whole endeavour from the outset: she's lived here her whole life and there's a reason that she's never been to that part of town.

Tom resisted the temptation to put the roof of his car down and blast out gangsta rap, but we were very excited to see real life crack whores and 'street hoppers' on the corner of one street, just like in 'The Wire'! We also saw a huge funeral parade crawling down the other side of the road, and a man zooming along the street in a wheelchair, which Bam said was most probably because he'd been shot.

I thought the Watts Towers were going to be gigantic, and perhaps two big tower blocks in the middle of an estate that were now considered cool, like the Trellick Tower in London. But they're kind of small (and once was in scaffolding). They were built over 33 years by a crazy guy, who decorated them with 'found objects' like bits of bottles and plates. There are all sorts of sad stories surrouding them, like neighbours vandalising them, the local authorities trying to tear them down and someone pay $3 or something for them. But now they're officially a National Historical Landmark.

As such, if Watts is really that bad, the bad people are really missing a trick by not hanging out nearby to steal nice cameras from tourists! Perhaps they're out when the weather's nicer, because it was really bleak and wet this morning.

Bam was very happy when we finally beat a hasty retreat out of the 'hood and the four of us went our separate ways this afternoon: Bambi and I sat in static traffic to get to the Valley to go for lunch with Bam's best friend Julia and her little girl Zola, while Tom and Maxy went record shopping at Amoeba.

On our way back to the flat, Bambi needed to pick up a pie for Thanksgiving tomorrow, so swung by the bakery she'd put an order in with, only to find a huge queue stretching all the way around the block! So we sped off and got an apple pie from the supermarket instead!

For supper, we met another friend of Bambi's - Patty - for deliiiicious Korean barbecue. Mmm, it was a feast of meat! Patty is Korean, so ordered us all the best stuff and I was stuffed by the time we left. I hope I have room for some yams and turkey tomorrow!

JOSHUA TREE

Turns out some people have jobs to do, and Tom is one of those people, so he wasn't around during the day today and Nina left for Thanksgiving with her Mum first thing this morning, so Max and I took ourselves off to the desert for an adventure.

Nina very generously lent us her sweet sweet ride, and we drove off in the sunny sunshine to the Joshua Tree National Park, about two hours' drive from Tom and Nina's home.

It was lovely weather this morning and Nina's car has the facility for playing an ipod through the speakers, so we put the top down, put the Beach Boys on the stereo and headed off on our adventure.

It felt really good to be doing something proper with our day, rather than mooching about the streets of West Hollywood, or whatever, and I'm so pleased we made the effort.

En route, we passed a gigantic wind farm. My Dad hates energy windmills and is campaigning against them popping up all over Dorset, but I think there's something quite cool and beautiful about lots of them in a big open space. Perhaps it's just the landscape of the future and something we have to get used to.

As well as the cool cacti there, Joshua Tree is famous for being the place that Gram Parsons (one of my all-time favourite singer/songwriters) would go and get very high, eventually dying of an overdose in room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn, aged 26. Unfortunately, we whizzed past the motel before really registering what it was, which is a shame.

Also a shame was our inability to resist the cliche of playing U2's album 'Joshua Tree' as we entered the park. I can only apologise.

The park is so cool. It's vast, with one road going through it, passing quite distinct phases. The first phase was of cool, spindly cacti, a bit like something from Dr Seuss:

The second phase was of cool yellow rocks that had been weathered and kind of rounded by centuries of erosion:

The aptly named 'Skull Rock'

We would get out of the car from time to time, to wander around and clamber over rocks. We encountered a couple of families at Arch Rock, where the two Dads were taking the very young children up onto the huge stone arch.

Harking back to my days on walks in Dorset, trying to keep up with Tom and his impetuous rock-climbing ways, I decided to clamber up onto the arch, figuring if 6-year olds could do it, it could surely be no match for me.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was freakin' terrifying. I really very nearly had a panic attack when I got up there, because it was higher than any photo could really relate and really narrow, too. Plus, it didn't help that there was a gale-force wind/slight breeze (probably the latter) threatening to blow me off onto the unforgiving rocks below. Hddrdrdrdrr.

As much as I would've liked to've hung out up there, contemplating my navel, maybe doing a bit of yoga, I waited long enough for Maxy to take a photo, then gingerly climbed back down, mostly on my ass.

We went exploring for some caves nearby, but didn't find them and frankly I'd spent all my adventurousness chips and wanted to get back in the car and hit the road!

The final phase of the park was full of cholla cacti, which apparently hop! Though I didn't see that happen:

We left the park with plenty of time before we had to be back in town for tonight's bowling extravaganza and handover to Tom and Bambi, so we decided to take the long way back and check out Palm Springs.

Big mistake.

Firstly, it was much further away than we thought and, still reeling from my New Hampshire speeding ticket and encounter with the Angriest State Trooper Ever, I wasn't too keen to whizz along the freeway in a way that I might've done in the days before my $250 fine. So it took ages to get there and I was getting really stressed about not being back in LA in time for this evening's arrangements. Plus, the weather had really clouded over, so the roof was back up on the car and the Beach Boys were no longer on the stereo.

But worst of all, Palm Springs is just a real hole. We thought it'd be a cool, art deco kind of 50s playtown for wealthy and old people, but - certainly along the main drag - it was just a weird, soulless linear town with no defining or pleasant features at all.

Fortunately we made it back in time to meet Tom and head off to a bowling alley near Tom and Bambi's flat, where we busied ourselves shooting both aliens and hoops in the arcade bit, until Tom and Bam arrived and we had a fun evening of bowling. I love to bowl. It was really sad that Nina wasn't there and I think everyone was pretty pooped after a long day at work/in the desert, but it was fun to all hang out together and I threw a few rocks before Tom officially handed Max and me off to Tom and Bambi and we adjourned to Mar Vista for the second half of our LA visit.

GUITAR HERO WIDOW

FIRST EVER LA CELEB SPOT: Adam Levine, lead singer of Maroon 5 (and a bit of a tool), was mooching around the same supermarket where we bought dinner on Saturday night!

We're in LA! We flew in on Saturday (on the very pleasant Alaskan Air) and go home on Friday. We spent the weekend with Tommy and Nina and, as ever, it was wonderful to see them, as natural as if we hang out all the time, rather than only see each other once or twice a year, and lots of fun.

Our arrival in LA was somewhat marred by Max leaving my phone on the plane (ok, I guess I'm not allowed to be cross, if I wasn't prepared to look after it myself), so I had to dash back through security and all over LAX back to the gate, to pick it up. At least it was there!

It was quite important that I get my phone back (apart from for obvious reasons), because I was a little unclear as to whether Tom and Nina were picking us up or not. They offered but, because they live on the other side of LA from the airport, I insisted we take the SuperShuttle and just meet them at their house.

Tom's kindness is only matched by the strength of his will, and I've never known him to back down in a situation like this. So although we left it that we would get the bus, I kind of expected to see them at the airport and, when we didn't, had to call him to check he wasn't on his way or whatever.

Even when I was reunited with my phone, I couldn't reach Tom, so we got the SuperShuttle anyway, keeping an eye out for his car, in case we passed him coming into the airport. But we didn't. Instead, we found both Tom and Nina happily at home, waiting for us.

Maxy wasn't with me when I visited in the summer, so it was really nice for him to see Tom and Nina and their gorgeous home, and nice for me to be able to share the fun with Max. We headed straight out to get some lunch, then took Maxy up to the Griffith Observatory, which is one of the few things he hasn't done in LA but wanted to. Despite having been there on my last visit, I was so happy to go again, as we saw the most gorgeous sunset over the city:

We were all pretty snoozy by the time we left the observatory, so just headed to the supermarket, bought some food and then Maxy and I made Tom and Nina supper before we settled down to watch a movie, which I fell asleep in front of.

This morning, Tom and Nina made the terrible mistake of introducing Maxy to Guitar Hero on their PlayStation. He's utterly hooked! One of the many things about Max for which I am grateful is that he's not into computer games at all, so I don't have to contend with a zombified husband frantically pressing buttons for hours at a time and leaving me to go to bed while he tries to get to the next level of some game.

I also thought he was safe from the gigantic Guitar Hero craze, because he can actually play guitar, so surely pressing buttons instead of sliding fingers up and down strings would be really unsatisfying? Mais non. He loves it! And he's pretty good at it too. Tom is AMAZING at it, and is discovering all these rock bands whose songs are on the game. I stumbled my way through Pat Benatar's 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot', but wasn't too sad when it was time to go to brunch. I'm fairly sure Max was, though...

We went back to Cliff's Edge, where we had brunch last time I visited, and which I really really like. Even more so since Tom and Nina saw none other than Veronica Mars herself - Kristen Bell - there a few weeks ago! Unfortunately we did not, but the food was still very tasty.

Afterwards, we went in search of the tar pits, which are right in the middle of LA and which I thought would be vast and cool, but actually consist of a little pool of tar with a fake mammoth next to it. It's still pretty cool to think of that whole area that's now so built up and populated, once being sprawling masses of tar, where mammoths roamed.

Leaving the tar pits a little underwhelmed, we spent this afternoon cruising around the city, which is one of my favourite things to do there, especially in Nina's sweet convertible. We went along Hollywood Blvd, up into Laurel Canyon and the Hollywood Hills and to the Hollywood sign overlooking the reservoir.

I should perhaps have put the top up on the car before we pulled up at the House of Blues - legendary live music venue - to investigate who on earth was playing that had attracted such a gigantic, round-several-blocks queue. On discovering that it was the Jonas Brothers, I did my best tween impression by squealing, 'aargh! It's the Jonas Brothers'! Only to be set upon by grumpy fans and having to speed off, for fear of being glittered to within an inch of my life.

As we were cruising down Sunset, you'll never guess what we saw - an Idaho numberplate!! In fact, two of them, parked next to each other! I squealed louder than a tween coming face to face with a Jo Bro, screeched over to the side of the road and took a photo, thereby finally completing our set. Oh, happy day!

And what better way to cap off such a kickass day, than watching a kickass movie on a gigantic screen? We were all very excited to go and see 'Quantum of Solace' at the ArcLight - a humungous cinema screen. But unfortunatley the movie really sucks. It's kind of offensively bad. I had no idea what was going on half the time and the director - Marc Forster - seemed to have no sense of montage, so that shots were put together in a way that didn't make sense. It was so disappointing, because I LOVE 'Casino Royale' and had high hopes for the second Daniel Craig Bond movie. It did look very good, though - the production design was excellent - and I thought Olga Kurylenko was good, too.

GIGS & JAZZ HANDS

ONLY BUMMER ABOUT OUR IMPENDING TRIP TO LA: we're missing a Vampire Weekend gig AND They Might Be Giants, performing the whole of 'Flood'!!

We haven't been to a proper gig since we got to DC, which is unusual for us, because we see quite a lot of live music in London. So I was really pleased when Emily emailed to suggest we go and see Dr Dog at the 9.30 Club, which is meant to be the best live music venue in town.

I don't know Dr Dog at all, but Emily said their harmonies are like the Beatles and Max has heard them compared to The Band, so I checked them out on You Tube and got us some tickets - I'm really looking forward to it!

After the excitement of the card-making class at PaperSource last month, I now have to put my money where my mouth is and get down to the serious business of making 60 handmade Christmas cards with all the gear I bought while high from the course. So much of this week has been spent painstakingly cutting out angels from cardboard. I'm not sure my sanity is going to make it - I've been way over-ambitious!

As a prize for doing so well during the election and working so hard these past few months, I got Maxy a massage at our gym, which he went for yesterday and said was looooovely. When he was in the shower afterwards, a foot came into his cubicle from the shower next door and tapped a couple of times! Max recognised this signal from the story of Larry Craig from last year, so kept his feet to himself!

While Maxy was getting cruised, I went to my first ever jazz funk class! It was pretty fun and there were bits of it that reminded me of ballet from when I was little - like prancing diagonally across the room - which was nice, but other bits reminded me why I don't like dance classes, when I couldn't grasp the really straightforward choreography and my body wouldn't work in the right way.

The instructor was a really fun little lady who was a ball of energy and talked at a rate of a million words a second and told us all about how she's just broken up with her boyfriend and how the metro was crazy and how she's annoyed that her class has been bumped from the bigger room (I was the only person in the class for the first 5 mins and only about 5 more people turned up, so I kind of get that decision by the gym).

It was quite fun and I could see how I could get fit from it, but I think I might stick to butts, guts and guns for now...

Today was a sad day, as I helped Anne move out of the flat next door. By the time we come back from LA next week, she'll be gone! She's found a flat up near Columbia Road, kind of north of Adams Morgan, so it's only about a 15 minute walk, but it's up a hill and - as already noted with a heavy heart - I have to wear shoes to go there.

It was great to see Megan, though - I haven't seen her since before we went to Costa Rica, as while we were away, she was headhunted to write speeches for Michelle Obama and moved to Chicago for the rest of the election.

It sounds like it was a really tough experience for her and not a wholly enjoyable one, beyond getting to be in the middle of everything: her boss sounds like a horrid nightmare and she didn't really get close to Michelle, so felt a bit at sea a lot of the time. Jonathan sounds adorable in his efforts to support her from here in DC, though - he would skype her on the webcam and read her 'Anne of Green Gables' (her favourite book) to calm her down!

We're going to LA for a week tomorrow, to see Tom and Nina and spend Thanksgiving with Tom and Bambi, so of COURSE I had to go and get a manicure, pedicure and legwax this evening, in preparation! I am now sunshine-ready...