February 16th – It’s been a few days since my last post – a bit of routine has set in and we are feeling very much at home here. On Friday morning we went up to the big outlet mall north of Palm Springs and wandered around for a while. I bought a few items at Chicos and Ann Taylor and the Jockey store did well by us both. We were very intrigued by the Chinese folk on a bus tour since they were also purchasing new luggage to accommodate their purchases. I guess the cost of extra luggage home makes up for the ability to purchase American goods which aren’t available at home.

Since Sunday was Valentine’s Day, and we knew the restaurants would likely be busy, we planned to eat out on Saturday evening. Maybe everyone else had the same idea because we couldn’t get a reservation anywhere. In the end we went early to Olive Garden and were home again by 6:15pm. Are we getting old or what!!

Church on Sunday morning was the 10:30am service at Community Presbyterian. The music was led by a worship team composed of piano, violin, bass and three singers. Two of the singers had` very good voices and the blend was quite nice. The handbell group also played two pieces: Joshua’s March and Song of Love. The latter had a drum accompaniment. They played on three octaves but since there were 12 people my guess is that some only played one note and its accidental. The Director of Music also played in the group.

On Sunday evening we attended a fantastic concert by the Westminster Chorus. This was one of a series of concerts sponsored by the Desert Friends of Music, an arts organization that is part of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church. The Westminster Chorus are 3-time Barbershop Harmony Society International Champions, their latest win coming in July 2015. They began the concert with a religious component of two songs sung “in the round” – absolutely stunning, you could have heard a pin drop. The church has beautiful acoustics which only added to the rich sound made by 40 men. Later in the program they did some more traditional barbershop style pieces and two quartets from amongst the group also sang a few pieces. The disciplined approach to entrances, cut-offs, dynamics and chord changes was one of the things that caught our attention – easier obviously when there is no printed music and all eyes are on the conductor. Here’s a sample from their website: Westminster Chorus. Seize the Day is one of the pieces they used for the competition and they repeated it Sunday evening, although with less choreography given the limited space in the church. The next presentation is the afternoon before we leave and will feature Frederick Swann, a well-known organist, in concert. He will be celebrating his 85th birthday this year.

After the concert, we dropped our car at the house and walked to Starbucks on El Paseo. The street is quite pretty at night with strings of white lights wrapped around the palm trees and white icicle lights up in the palm fronds. We arrived just after Starbucks had closed unfortunately, thus forcing us to the Daily Grill, at our corner, for yet another piece of key lime pie. We sat outside and since it was quite warm we didn’t need the patio heaters on. The other night when we were there for dinner they couldn’t get the heaters to work – tonight our waiter couldn’t get the candles to work. It was quite fun.

Monday was golf day at the Dunes course in La Quinta. This is a Pete Dye course with no fewer than six tee boxes. We played on our own behind a father and son of about 10 who could hit it farther than either of us…although maybe not too accurately.  He must have been one tired pup that night since he was constantly running back and forth from the cart to his ball. When he wasn’t hitting he was practicing his swing. We quite enjoyed the course and would play here again.

We have both been bothered with allergies the last few days and stopped at the pharmacy last evening to get some relief. The pharmacist said it is particularly bad this year because of the heat wave – everything has blossomed at the same time. No guff…we are both like running taps!

Today was a tennis day and we headed out early to avoid the heat. After our workout we took a little tour around the sports complex – watched some senior softball (George calls it lob ball), checked out the aquatic centre and passed by the basketball, beach volleyball, play ground and YMCA. It’s quite a complex sponsored by three of the cities in this area. In both of the baseball games there were some women playing and there were also controversies over the rules. Some things never change – poor umpires!

We filled up with gas today at $0.66 per litre – great price.

Tomorrow we head off to the Phoenix area for a few days with George’s cousin Ted and his wife Sue. They are from the Seattle area but winter in Mesa, AZ. We don’t really know them that well but Ted will be traveling with us in England and France later this spring. This is a good opportunity to make the connection since we are only 4 hours apart.