The destination: The Million Fishes Arts Collective, Bryant street, in all its glory

The moment

has arrived

R&D, as I shall call them from now on, are to meet us. We wait nervously by an airport underpass that seems a trifle Third World. We scan the traffic for our first sight of the Golden Eagle. Jane sends a text.

Then at last a fat white van – the Beast – appears and lurches towards us. Hugging and kissing ensue. We clamber in and set out on a broad freeway, barrelling along and all talking at the same time.

Big things happen on your travels and you forget the little things. And the thing I've forgotten is my Brazilian straw hat, left on the pavement (sidewalk please!) at the airport in the excitement. Sportingly, R turns the Beast round. But it's not only the hat that I abandoned. There it is for sure. Next to it is my rucksack containing MBF, the thing I value most, my laptop. And the Department of Home Security hasn't even blown it up. Poor shoe, department!

The Million Fishes artists' collective in the Mission District, where R&D now live, is a truly wondrous establishment. Eclectic would be a posh art critic word for it. But I'll return to it at a later blog with picture. Just to say: it's a place to die for.

R makes us a Californian corn pizza and sleep beckons. They take us to our AirBnB lodging in Noe Valley. We meet the excellent Austin O'Flynn, our landlord and we fall in to bed. But before that we meet his dog, White Fang in the flesh, a lovely old grey mat of a husky, who later tries to get into bed with us. More about Austin and his dog later. Bear with me.

"Hates California, it's cold and it's damp. That's why the lady is a tramp." Thank you Mr MH! You're right – and would love to meet Claire's long lost cousin. But later it will not be damp. The sun will come out and we do love California.

Read the next blog: A hymn to the Golden State.