Saratoga Farmers Market

We visited Saratoga Farmers Market this morning and I have never seen such an array of beautiful Fruit and Vegetables.

Loads of mini tomatoes.

Citrus fruit.

Asparagus selling well.

Eleanor chose some Roses as a gift.

Kombucha is a very popular drink and Fraser took 3 bottles to be refilled.

Huge vegetables. California truly feeds America.

Leslie chooses her Mothers Day present to hang at the back of the house as long as it gets a minimum of 4 hours sunshine a day.

Such an array of Mushrooms.

Water Cress

A lovely display of fruit.

San Francisco Bay Nature Reserve

After a nice sea food lunch with Fraser and Leslie we were taken to the other side of the Bay to the San Francisco Bay Nature Reserve. The bird in the photo is a Turkey Vulture.

This is the highway that runs right across the bay and it sits beside the nature reserve.

Lots of little inlets and creeks.

The tide was coming in so there were very few birds feeding.

There were loads of Swallows feeding in this stretch of the creek.

A rose between two thorns.

A lizard basking on a fence.

Saratoga Houses

These are just a few of the local Saratoga houses Sammy and I pass on our morning walk. No two are the same and they are valued at between $3 and $4 Million. Most of the owners work for the Silicon Valley IT companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, PayPal and many more.

Most of the streets are cul de sacs and there is no street lighting and very few pavements. The roads are wide and very quiet except for the main through road and it is only busy at peak commuter times. Nearly all the gardens have irrigation systems and some of them have artificial grass. Most have cars in the drive with probably a quarter or more of them being Tesla’s. The nearest shops are about 2 miles away and there are no busses.

A visit to Filoli House and Gardens

Fraser and Leslie took us to Filoli House and Gardens this afternoon. They are a 30 minute drive from Saratoga towards San Francisco. The house was built in 1915 and eventually many years later handed over to the National Trust for Historical Buildings.

The gardens are well laid out over a large area and are spectacular.

I do love Californian Poppies.

Fraser and Gaye enjoying a seat in the gardens.

The Clock Tower of the big house.

Eleanor under the Wisteria

The Dining Room in the house.

One of the Sitting rooms.

The Swimming Pool.

In the garden they had a Cocktail Bar and the 2 kids and 2 pensioners had Shirley Temple non alcoholic cocktails while Fraser and Leslie had something a little  stronger but not that much. Tommy missed the afternoon as he had a Soccer match which his team won easily.

The family outside the entrance to the house. A most enjoyable afternoon and although the house was just over a hundred years old it was a different era and very interesting.

San Jose Earthquakes v Los Angeles at Levi’s Stadium

This is the Levi’s Stadium home to The San Francisco 49ers. Capacity is about 85K and today there was 45K at the Soccer match. The Quakes home stadium has 18k capacity but as the game gets more popular they have to use the big stadium for the top teams visiting.

As we entered the stadium We bumped into Fraser’s boss at GM. They both worked together for 8 years at Apple and are now together again at General Motors (GM).

Thomas, Fraser, and Leslie.

The auld pair.

A very impressive stadium. The food concessions were everywhere and I have never seen as much food consumed at a football match.

After the game we had to walk about a mile to our parked car alongside this river.

Some of the Wildfowl on the river. It was a most enjoyable evening and Gaye was so game to go to it even although she knows nothing about the game. We were very lucky as it had poured with rain all day and only stopped an hour before the game and as the stadium has no roof we couldn’t have attended if the rain had continued. The result was a 3-1 victory for San Jose Earthquakes who were bottom of the league while Los Angeles were second from the top.

A Clay Shooting Trip

Fraser took me to a Shooting Range about 30 minutes south of Saratoga this morning. It was a lovely rolling hills area and well organised and set up.

Fraser comes here on average once a month and really enjoys it. His friend Brian joined us and it was a lovely day. Fraser hit about 50% of the clays and my score was 25% and Brian about 40%.

Lovely rolling hillsides

A visit to downtown Saratoga

My morning walk was quite early and I met many commuters on their way to work. Only half a mile of my morning walk is on a through road and 8 cars passed me of which 7 were Tesla’s plus many of the driveways had Tesla’s parked still.

On my return from the walk Fraser had his usual Thursday morning visit from his friend David who works at Apple as a programmer. His Porsche is 2 years old and was imported from Germany at a total cost of $230,000. It’s a different world out here.

At 11.00am the cleaners were due to start work in the house so we booked an Uber to downtown Saratoga to have Coffee and a Light lunch at Big Basin Cafe. 2 coffees and 2 sandwiches cost £25 but it was lovely sitting outside watching the world go by.

There were flowers everywhere 

The Main Street was very quiet, but it comes alive in the evening as there are loads of cafes and restaurants. We then visited a craft brewery to buy some beer for Fraser and Leslie and another Uber took us back home. Saratoga is such a beautiful small town with a wide Main Street and lots of places to sit out and watch the world go by.