Happy New Year! Sorry for the strange timing but it’s been wonderful to keep my laptop shut, as I am sure you can imagine.
Charlie and I are slowly floating back across the world, lost in a minor haze/dreamworld…. memories falling in and out of my mind. I actually love that strange half-awake, half-asleep sensation you get from flying a very long way, drifting way above the clouds, looking at the vastness of the sky, the huge width of the horizon line, sun rising, sun setting, a silver crescent moon high in a black sky glimpsed out of the plane window while everyone slept last night… Soon we will be back in London and home, and into reality; but for now, we can space out in the never-never world of airports and immigration queues and planes and millions and millions of patient people in transit.
I know it shouldn’t really be me, but I like the otherness of this place, the completely bland anonymity – while you are in the plane world you could literally be anywhere in the world. It makes reality feel so much sharper and more beautiful when we finally arrive at our destination.
So here I am at Los Angeles Airport with an hour to spare before we board our flight home and Charlie has gone wandering and I’m reminiscing about the minor weirdness of being here in LA just a couple of weeks back on our way to New Zealand for Christmas. We stopped for one and a half lovely strange happy days on the way south. I’d never been to LA, a place I’d wanted to see for some little time. (I can’t believe in the five years that I lived in New York that I never properly made a trip west – I’m afraid we must blame toxically short American holiday allowances for that, I suppose, or maybe I was just less curious about parts of the world in those days?)
We stayed at the Line hotel, recommended by friends. We loved it. Who wouldn’t love waking up to this view (having arrived in the dark, the evening before):
It’s brilliant. But we got very good about getting out and about, too. Everyone had said to visit the Getty, which we did, early that first morning. A beautiful place. We loved it.
Incredible pictures, of course; and incredible views in every direction.
And then to the Getty Villa, which was like some weird 1970s kitsch classical film set. The interiors really need to be full of plastic junk collected by Jonathan Adler and then all would be well.
I think we breathed a bit of a sigh of relief to be away and then we went for a massive drive, with a few stops along the way…
Those palm trees are at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I’ve always been excited to see the Beverly Hills Hotel because we are shortly going to be decorating, for a client, a huge swimming pool room in London in Don Loper’s famous ‘Martinique’ wallpaper first designed for the hotel in 1942. Bold clients – it’s going to be an incredible room!
You can read all about this famous wallpaper in a lovely little essay by Fabrice Bana over on his blog here. Worth a read. Well, in the meantime, Charlie and I thought we would go and drink a cocktail in the Polo Bar. I posted a wee instagram. Who knew the social outrage I’d just caused! I’m afraid we were both simply and completely unaware of the boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Haha!! Who knew? Social pariahs. Well, we enjoyed our drink but then it was time to leave; the night beckoned.
The following morning was again beautiful and clear. The rising sun shone, reflecting on windows like fires around the Hollywood Hills…
We had a bit less time on our second day – we needed to do a bit of last minute Christmas shopping (I will spare you photographs of the Mall, but it was amazing in its way) and our flight left in the afternoon. But there was just time to get to the Huntington Library, collection and gardens, all of which were sublime…. and needless to say I was fascinated by the drive as well.
Charlie declares that Bonsai is back. Here in LA, I am not sure if it ever went away. Beautiful, and amazing. Are you a secret bonsai fancier? Please get in touch.
And then we sped our way back across the golden-dusty highways, in to the city….
and we were off again. And the next road I photographed was in beautiful, wide, clear, airy, spacious, empty New Zealand. Life is all about contrast.
And of all that, more will follow when we’re home. I hope you’ve had a wonderful start to the New Year!
