Another odd picture: Jane spots another strange bird, so I have to photograph it

Jane sees an otter

We sleep well beneath a pile of blankets on our first night in Dragonfly Cottage in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I had to lift Jane on to our bed. She was having difficulty trying to get into it, as it towers over the other furniture and there was no handy chair near by. We wake to a layer of mist beneath us and look out over the tops of redwoods as our cottage is perched on the side of a steep slope.

Our washing is lying in a heap so we head for a launderette in Santa Cruz, a seaside town that used to attract the hippy generation. There are few signs now of the flower children; I expect they have all built shacks in the hills. The combination of a chilly wind, finding somewhere to park, losing our way several times, and locating a launderette puts us in a critical mood and I start rewriting Lonely Planet’s glowing account of Santa Cruz. The sun comes out after 1pm and we eat our sandwiches overlooking the sea. Jane says she sees an otter on its back eating something but she is always “seeing” otters – which just happen to be her favourite animal. We can’t go near any bit of water without Jane seeing otters everywhere. I assure her that it is piece of driftwood bobbing about in the waves. Later I hear a bearded passerby, whom I take to be a wise old man of the sea, tell a young boy: “Look son, there be an old dog otter. Seems as if it be eatin’ a crab for his dinner.” Of course, old US seadogs don’t talk like this, but no matter. I decide to revise my opinion and tell Jane that on this occasion she is right and that what she has seen may have been an otter. She is not, however, placated by my late conversion to otter-sighting. I learn later that this is the first otter that she has actually seen in the wild!!!

But even that excitement fails to raise our spirits, so we head for the Nickelodeon, the town’s art cinema. It, at least, has withstood the tide of commercialism that has swept away all trace of alternative living. The Nickelodeon is showing a crop of foreign films, including a Russian-made Chekhov adaptation, but we plump for a safe bet, a French-made cold war thriller called Farewell. Sure enough, it’s a good choice. We give it four ****. Catch it if you can. It contains an amusing portrayal of a Reaganesque US president who spends much of the time watching his old cowboy films.

And that was about it for our first day in the Santa Cruz Mountains.