My dad and
his wife, Margaret, and her granddaughter, Lucy, came to San Francisco on
holiday recently. Margaret’s daughter, Jo, had started a few months’ work
placement in the East Bay so it was a happy coincidence that I happened to live
nearby and, not to take it personally or anything, was available for chauffeuring and sherping duties.
While Jo was,
unfortunately, having to work (damn these companies with their stupid rules!), I
rashly offered to take Dad, Margaret and Lucy sightseeing. The only slight drawback
was that I own a tiny convertible mini and my hubby has a 2 seater Mercedes, neither
of which could be considered ideal for driving 5 people around! Luckily, my
daughter owns a more sensible 5 seater, 4 door car and, with the organizational
and peace-keeping negotiations of a highly-skilled NATO ambassador, I was able
to persuade her to lend it to me. She struck a hard bargain though and I was down
a complete inside/out cleaning valet and a full tank of gas each time!
My 80-year-old
father has a very bad knee so I organized a mobile scooter for him
at the last minute which, although it did break down into four parts, needed
Iron Man to manhandle them up the 2 flights of stairs each night into his 2nd
floor Airbnb apartment! Every time we went out, we would have to heave them down
the stairs and into the boot (trunk) of the car and then reassemble the damn
thing wherever we went. It obviously helped if Dad remembered to bring the
sodding key though.
Like Dick Dastardly from Whacky Races, he careered around at top speed,
whizzing along like he needed to get everywhere yesterday and complaining
loudly at other people on the sidewalk (“Get out of the way, you blithering
idiot!”). One person he bumped into very kindly suggested, as the back of his
legs were being mown down, that it might be good if my father could remove his
finger from the accelerator lever! And if
it hadn’t been for Lucy risking life and limb throwing herself in front of him
and grabbing the brakes, he would have driven straight into one of the
ornamental ponds at the Japanese Tea Gardens.
Despite the devilish
scooter, we had a lot of very lovely days out, and I somehow managed to keep my
patience and sense of humour despite the many, many miles (note to self: check with google maps next time of the
exact distance of your planned scenic drive instead of simply guessing) of the
beautiful Californian coastline, majestic redwoods, rolling Marin hills and Dad
complaining about my driving and demanding to know what the population was of every bloody
town we passed through.
(As a side
note, I am not entirely sure how population figures are calculated, but Stinson
Beach, for example, apparently has a population of 356, according to the sign
we passed as we entered the tiny picturesque seaside town. What happens when
someone dies or a baby is born or a gaggle of students move in? Does the local
sign-maker have to rush along and modify the number? Does someone go around
knocking on doors to find out how many people live there? Perhaps someone just
makes it up, based on how many surfboards or dog turds they see around the town
on any given day?)
My kids were
also happy to see some family and we had a number of very enjoyable meals
together, something that we all miss now that we live so far away from our relatives
in the UK. I just wish my 19-year-old son could have chosen a different occasion
to show off his burgeoning love life, as he proudly displayed his first shocking
red love bite for all to see!
And I won’t
go into the Fawlty Towers’ farce of Dad’s Airbnb apartment (let by an
over-sharing, non-stop-talking madwoman with hoarding issues, who hadn’t
cleaned or tidied, went under a false name and kept popping back to pick up something
she’d forgotten, nearly causing my Dad to have an aneurysm) as we would be here
all day, but we all agreed it was, at least, in a fabulous setting in the
Marina district of San Francisco. And you know what they say … location,
location, location!
