Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous

Saturday 22^nd October

Best 8 hours of sleep I ever had. At least that what I wanted to say, but it had to be interrupted by the garage door opening, which I happened to be sleeping above. The reason for the 8am wakeup call – Greg left to get a trailer to attach to the back of his pick-up truck. And why would he be getting a trailer? Today would be part fun and part removal man. 

After drifting off for another hour or so, I awoke to the smell of breakfast. By this time it was almost 10am, so I decided to freshen up, and make my acquaintance with a new day. I was to be greeted with the smell of an All-American breakfast, including Pancakes with golden syrup, French toast, scrambled & fried eggs and Cinnamon-infused eggy bread. Christine said grace and we all tucked in. Yum Yum Yum

Now we were all fueled up, it was time to crack on with the morning/afternoon activities. ½ hour down the road, back at the family home, we lifted some more boxes, mainly crystal figures and bowls. The kicker was a cabinet that doubles up as a serving table. Between me and Greg, we easily put it into the trailer. All was good and we headed back home, ready to watch an afternoon of Football (American).

After getting about 3 hours of Football fun, Christine and Greg announced that we would be spending the evening at their friends, and to prepare for a long trip. Long trip was definitely the word to use; despite only being about 50 miles away, it took a little over 2 hours to reach our destination. It didn’t matter, we had our audio book and the Redneck radio to keep us amused.

But I can assure you, the wait was very much worth it. We had arrived in Calabasas, the more civilized (and frankly, a lot better) version of Beverly Hills. The scenery… sublime, the houses… amazing and the security… annoying. A small Cul De Sac, restricted by an electric gate, which required voice activation by talking into a stone gargoyle. The security guard (who may be based anywhere) clearly wasn’t paying attention to us, until Christine got out of the car to shout into the gargoyle. And sure enough, it worked, the gate opened up to reveal a row of 10 beautiful houses.

We pulled up outside the first house. Christine’s best friend, Stacey, greeted us, where we were able to look around their home (of only a month) and my oh my what a place. I thought Christine and Greg’s house was posh, but this…I just can’t explain just how awesome this place is. High end furnishing, a huge sofa, complete with 100’+ HD screen, and a kitchen even Gordon Ramsey would be envious of.

And that’s just the inside; the outside was just as impressive. An almost natural looking pool, a lounge area, complete with a 40’ Ultra-High definition & surround sound like no other. It was here that I met my first millionaire, Stacey’s husband, Dave, who has a senior position at Ticketmaster. He invited 3 members of his team, Amy, James and Ricky, who would be joining me, Dave and Greg to watch even more football in the outdoor lounge. Later on, another of Stacey and Christine’s friends: Audrey came along to help out with the upcoming feast.

While the 6 of us were enjoying the football, we were treated to some appetizers, starting out with freshly fried tortilla chips and fresh guacamole, then some ciabatta slices with tomato & basil topping. After some pleasing results, we were called inside for a feast of steaks, jacket potatoes and salad. Plenty of discussion about work at Ticketmaster and the British (Myself and Ricky – from London, moved over 4 years ago) took us all up to about 11pm.

Now that we all had our fill of Steaks, talk about the British, and some gorgeous marble cupcakes, Audrey, Amy, James and Ricky had left, leaving 5 of us. Me and Christine (who had drunk quite a lot at this point) volunteered to do the washing up. It seemed the least I could do to repay the generous hospitality, that and the fact the dishwasher wasn’t working properly. By 12.15am, we had cleaned everything and we had 1 more port of call before we headed home, (and no it’s not the bathroom,)

The initial plan was to do this before we went to Stacey and Dave’s home, but we were enjoying ourselves too much. All 5 of us, travelled down the road to Stacey’s old home, to pick up a china cabinet. Now I’m glad we brought the trailer along. This thing was HUGE, and weighed a ton. The only consolation was that it was in 2 parts. It took me, Greg and Dave about ½ hour to put both parts into the trailer.

By this point it was 1.15am, we were all tired and we had another hour of driving to do. Luckily at this point, the roads weren’t as busy, but for that time of night, they were still pretty busy.  Unfortunately for Greg, who was driving, he missed the turning for the freeway down to the house. Luckily, there was another turning we could take a few miles down the road. We weren’t sure which one (well, C&G knew, I had no clue whatsoever) so we scoured the glove compartment for the sat-nav which led us safely home.

It hit 02:25am when we got home and we all agreed we needed to sleep, which is exactly what we did. Little did I know this wouldn’t really last….