Date: 22 June.

Location: Casa Martin, Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, the best little Mexican joint north of the border.

Notable sightings: dolphins.

“You know, I read somewhere that it is possible to breathe and look for dolphins at the same time. Breathe, everyone!”

That would be Brad, our yoga instructor for this morning’s beach yoga class in Santa Monica Beach by lifeguard station number 29. Like almost everyone else in LA, Brad’s a slashie. You know, like an model-slash-waitress or a model-slash-actress-slash-bartender. He’s a yogi-slash-conductor-slash-film-consultant and, this morning, lead us through an hour and a half of pranayama in the sunshine, downward dogs with our toes and hands in the surf and tree poses on the wet sand. And we did see dolphins, loads of them.

A few days ago my mother and I moved from the plastic fantastic Disneyland to the plastic fantastic Santa Monica. Give it a few more days yet and you might totally make a sandy-skinned, berry-brown, lazy-drawling Cali girl out of me. I have my routine down now: rouse reluctantly, muesli and yogurt for breakfast, beach yoga, stroll over to the haven that is Wholefoods (navigating through ignoring the siren song of the 3rd St Promende shops: well hello again Sephora, what’s that you say Victoria’s Secret, Anthropologie you tease, you’re having a sale?) to shop with the tanned and gorgeous and conscientious (collect kombucha, berries and a giant DIY organic salad), pool laze, attempt to read book, fall asleep, take salad to Santa Monica pier for dinner as the sun sets and shamelessly people watch.

Things I’ve overheard in LA this week:

“God, you know I used to take the bus down here on weekends, lugging all my stuff? Now look: I’m at a bar with a martini and staying at Shutters! If only I’d known I was going to marry rich I would never have bothered.”

***

“Why are all the TV stations always trying to get us to cheer for Brazil in the soccer?”

***

“Yoga gives you the bomb legs.”

***

“You know how they have dogs for blind people? Would it be awesome if they had them for dumb people?”

“Like, stupid people?”

“No, like mute people.”

“So… the dog talks for the person? Yeah, so awesome.”

***

“Oh, so you’re a food perve too?”

That last one was said to me, and my response, “Whaaa?” was not my most eloquent. I’d collected everything I actually needed from the Wholefoods, my basket was brimming and I was perusing the kefir dairy section purely for pleasure when a shop assistant asked of I needed help finding anything and I shook my head.

His cheerful response? “That’s cool we’re all food perves here.”

Love

Alex