Jeni Barnett

Bank Holiday Sunlessday.

I have had to wear a thick fleecy blue sweater, Jim’s black anorak, thick sweat pants and my new trainers to keep out the wind and the cold. Everybody is sneezing. The roads are waterlogged and the dog smells of wet fur. The cat comes in and rubs her soaking wet body against my legs. The heating is on and it feels like winter.

That did not stop me from shopping for raw food and taking BB into TWells for new clothes. The mockery of all those pretty summer dresses hanging on their Top Shop hangers as Kate Moss looked into the middle distance on the back wall. I noticed that her left nipple was up. I’m not surprised – it was friggin freezing in the shop.

I don’t know about Global warming. I met a great bloke at OHI who talked about sun spots being part of the cause of our climate change. It seems we have a sun spot that is 36 degrees on that big hot star that is waiting to destroy us in 2012. Which is why, he said, the Mayan Calender stopped at that point and Nostradamus said it was all coming to an end in 5 years time. I listened open-mouthed as he told me stories of aliens, space ships, and of The Better Burgers, a group of Illuminati who want to take over the world and the secret life-forms on the dark side of the moon-all of this whilst we juiced out wheat grass for our enemas.

Now that the sky is as dark as November there may be something in it, although I’m not too worried because he said there are a lot of ‘Indigo Children’ who are working to turn it all around. I just wish they would sort it by Friday because I want to mow the lawn.

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The weather men were right. California is meant to be sunny – and it was mostly. England is meant to be grey and wet with an overcast of depressing gloom – and it is mostly. We haven’t even taken Jackson out today.

The Clematis has gone mad, the lawn is as high as an elephants thigh, the Comfrey has driven through the Californian Poppies and there’s more washing in the cellar than Dot’s launderette.

I arrived back in the cottage lunchtime yesterday after a big week in London.
BB, the youngest daughter, guested with Jocelyn Brown at The Camden Jazz Cafe on Wednesday night. I cried. Jim beamed. The drummer thought she was good and the bass player told us to tell her not to stop practicing as she was fabulous. She, like her mother, believed that everyone thought she was useless. The genetic curse of the performer.

On Thursday she had an end of term gig at her university. She sung a self-penned song, accompanied by a guitarist, bassist and pianist. Jim cried. I beamed. And all her mates clapped enthusiatically.

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Hello, you lot. Darling Rod, my swarthy flight attendant, I am flying back on Sunday 20th, the evening flight. Cancel all your plans. I need you to see the new me. Now, thank heavens I can fit into one seat. What a relief.

As for you women who think I am being brave, it doesn’t take bravery to do what I am doing. Just iron resolve. But let me tell you walking through San Diego with the smell of a thousand island restaurants assaulting your senses is just about as testing as it gets. I am hanging in though to get rid of five years of hearty, happy, totally unhealthy eating – and it’s working.

As we speak, Josh, my host, is cooking up a steak with mushrooms, onions, cilantro (coriander) and a large helping of olive oil. Zoe is lying on the settee, as she is unable to move her legs from being made to work out so strenuously by her live-in-lover that she can only walk a few paces before applying for a legal separation. She’s not ill and is happily injesting the smells. I’m salivating as he chops up my lettuce, onion, tomatoes and sprouts… little live sunflower seed sprouts that take a year to chew and make your enzymes scream with delight. But, you see, it’s all in the mind. My three lettuce leaves, and the organic fly that Zoe so lovingly laid on my plate, will taste just as wonderful as his big, fat, juicy, sweet smelling, unctious slab of best fresh beef from Henry’s the organic supermarket, and yes, vegetarian pigs might fly.

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Well, as I slurp yet another green juice, you are all safely tucked up in your beds.
It’s 5.40 Pacific time which makes it nearly 3.00a.m. so if you are an insomniac, Good Morning.

The drive down to San Diego was utterly uninteresting. Maggie, my host, drove. Sybil sat in the back and I nodded off in the front. I’m not sure that Maggie realised I was asleep. So sorry, Mags, but I was understandably anxious about giving my body over to a bunch of Americans. But we arrived intact.

The weather was hot, the receptionist cool, though friendly, whilst I was shaking in my sandals. Sybil and Maggie drove off and I waved goodbye feeling like the new girl at nursery school.

My room was being cleaned by the ‘maid’ (don’t you hate that and just one of the many differences between us and them) so I wandered around the campus. Yes, it is called a campus because people come there to learn. There are palm trees, and birds of paradise, lots of lawns, lashings of sprinklers – it’s near the desert remember – and loads of loungers and soft cushioned chairs for the inmates to sit on.

A few guests were scattered around the place, casually dressed and sipping what looked like cloudy water.

It was indeed cloudy water- Rejuvelac- to be precise, which is actually fermented rye juice. It puts back the probiotics in the gut and tastes like off lemonade. But it’s worth getting used to.

I was eventually shown to my room. Twin beds, private bathroom, chest of drawers and Venetian blinds to block out the movement of the cars on the 70 lane freeway outside (and the movement on the inside of my bathroom).

Most people turned up by nine and my first overview of the other inmates was one of horror. They were all American, durr!, apart from Neil The Liverpudlian Comic and Michael the Mancunian lingerie salesman. I spent my first night tossing in my single bed, kicking off the nylon throw and wishing that I was back in Blighty.

When we checked in we were given a huge filofax diary with all our classes which after a cursory perusal only served to terrify me even more. What did ‘Circle’ mean? And ‘Elimination’ for an hour and a half? ‘Implants’? What the Hell were they going to do to us?

I had come to detox, not to end up looking like Dolly Parton. Not that I have got anything against Dolly but implants I don’t need!

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Alex Baldwin is on the telly talking about parental alienation. Sybil the soothsayer is having a lie down. Maggie, my hostess, is in the kitchen and the last remnants of the gecko have been retrieved from behind the armchair. Sam the cat has just entered the room but mercifully his mouth is empty.

Sybil took me to Venice Beach. I have never, in all my life, seen a more seedy, ugly, unfortunate area. The palm trees line the walkway. The sand dunes lead down to the Pacific Ocean. All sounds good so far, but back on dry land we have:

1. very bad musicians playing very bad music for a donation
2. not very good artists doing not very good paintings for donations
3. wasted men sitting cross-legged holding hand-painted cardboard signs with the legend ‘We will **** for marijuana’
4. a jolly good juggler, so I did leave a donation
5. okay jewellers making okay jewellery, for a donation
6. tarot readers reading tarot for, you’ve guessed it…

There is a 26 mile bicycle track that runs parallel to the ocean, which I’m sure is a great ride, but the walkway is so depressing, whilst the food is reflected in several large human beings who have partaken of too much sea(side) food.

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Well, finally I am able to get into the site. It has taken three days and countless long distance phone calls and emails, but I think we are there. Here’s hoping.

It’s 10.10am my time, 6pm your time.

I’m forever counting eight fingers to find out what time it is back home.

I am nearly over my jet lag. My homoeopath gave me a remedy which I keep popping. I wake at 1.15am (9am in blighty) – then at 3.15 then 7.15. This morning I got up at 6.30 and called Jim. He told me to stop ringing him. I called B who told me stop ringing her. I called my mother who said ‘Hello, goodbye!’ And then I hung up. My hosts have a deal with a telephone company so the bill is tiny.

The journey out on Thursday morning could not have been simpler. Jim kicked me out of bed at 6.30. I was all packed, if a little nervous. Oh, come on… it’s a trip to a retreat thousands of miles away with nobody to talk to and no bread to comfort me. Jim waved me off. I felt like I was going off to a new school, which I suppose I am.

The driver was a fascinating Algerian geezer who spoke French, English, Algerian and a lot of sense. As we sat in a traffic jam on the way to Heathrow, we talked about exile, cooking and the Sahara desert. He told me about the Bedouins, their hand-crafted shoes to keep their feet cool in the sand, and the exodus of the young into the cities.

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I’ve had my fix of ‘Corrie’ and eaten last night’s left overs. I’ve talked with Jim, who’s in the flat, and written up a treatment for a new show so now it’s time to reflect on Sunday and today.

I spent all weekend cooking. I made so many curries that I swear my underarms smell of Madras chicken. I took BB back to halls last night, then drove across London to the flat and delivered Jim his bag of clothes and goodies. He drove up to town on his motorbike.

Now before you think ‘how grand are they with a flat in town and a country residence’, the truth is that when I worked at GFL the studio rented me a flat so that I could work 5 days a week. Since I started at sparrows fart and knocked off anywhere between lights out and ‘time gentlemen please’ it was eminently sensible to stay in town.

I used to have a wonderful driver called Flav, who collected me every morning at 6.00 and took me home every afternoon. But four hours travelling, every day, took it’s toll and soon Flav was as exhausted as I was. We agreed that his money would become my expenses, that he would go off to pastures new and I would stay in London Town.

Uncle ‘Eo, my lovely floor manager, knew the area, so he came out flat hunting with me. The second property i saw was overlooking the wonderful Thames, opposite Chelsea harbour. Very posh with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a little utility room that got so hot my smalls dried in 10 minutes. My larges took a little longer.

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