Day 03 - A Day of Relaxation and Entertainment

A pleasantly not-to-busy day to relax and unwind. After a sleep-in and late breakfast with the Williams Clan the rest of the morning was spent reading and catching up with blogs and emails. I also witnessed the unexpected sight of one of Phil's boys doing a load of their own washing! This is a phenomenon that might have to be explored a little closer to home!

In the afternoon Phil and I went for a drive along the Oakland hills to catch the views across Oakland and the bay to San Francisco. Afterwards we stopped to explore the University of California (Berkeley) campus. For starters we saw the football stadium where Laura, Sam and I had watched a college football game with Phil and his boys back in 2002. It is currently a mass of construction as it is refurbished to include remedial earthquake proofing work. Thereafter it was a leasurely stroll around the magnificent grounds, which include the biggest freakin' eucalyptus trees I have even seen - they truly do thrive in this environment.

Back home I watched on TV some of a baseball game featuring the local team, the Oakland Athletics, as Dan and Evan helped enlighten me on some of the finer points of the game. I'd not realised what low scoring affairs they are most of the time - the pitchers really do hold sway these days.



The cast of "My Fair Lady"

 Thereafter I joined Phil and Pat for very pleasant picnic dinner in the beautiful Joaquin Miller Park up in the Oakland hills before sitting down to watch the Woodminster Summer Musical's production of "My Fair Lady" in the nearby open air Woodminster Amphitheater. It is billed as being "theatre under the stars" but it was more a case of "theatre in the fog" - though thankfully never thick enough to obscure the view of the stage. Still, you wouldn't have wanted to be sitting on those metal seats without the seat cushions that Phil and Pat knew to bring! And this is summer? Anyway, the production itself was very enjoyable and the two and a half hours seemed to slip by very quickly.

Thereafter it was home for a chat and a hot chocolate to end another very pleasant day!