Well today was set aside for admin, laundry and the like. Oh yes, there was also a knife fight.

So, we have been travelling across the States for a month now. As such, we are holed up in San Diego in a not particularly inspiring hotel (you know the type – spend more on a nice dinner than on a room for a night) tying up loose ends before we head off to South America. I could write a short PhD thesis on the merits and potential downsides of outsourcing various parts of one’s life. I have friends who contract out most of the raising of their children; I have others who believe it is bad for the soul to have a house too big to clean yourself. Anyway, let’s not get into the specifics, let’s just say that no matter how successful I may (or may not) become, I don’t believe I will ever use hotel dry cleaning services unless someone else is paying for them. I mean, six pounds for a pair of pants – come on guys! Sooo … on the road I am becoming a dab hand at public launderettes, having now used one at least twice in my life. This afternoon I had a very happy hour or so indulging in the guilty pleasure of washing, drying, folding, matching socks, drying Lucy’s things. I also pottered for a couple of hours on my laptop, sorting things out for when wifi is less available, and we packed and repacked our rucksacks in different ways. It was a very happy, pottering kind of day.

Mmmm. Laundry.

Mmmm. Packing.

Mmmm. Pottering.

Oh, did I mention a knife fight? Did you want to hear about that? Well, we went down to Prospect Beach to check out the surf, soak up a bit of sun and eat half of our bodyweight in cold stone ice cream sundaes. It must be the school holidays as there were the usual tipsy sunbathing teenagers, there were a couple of couples with their sandcastling toddlers, a mumble of bad surfers were surfing badly. We were very happily sat watching the waves, eating our ice cream and wishing we were back in the office. Idyllic, really. Anyway, some of the teenagers were getting a bit rowdy – one guy and three girls, some swearing, nothing bad – and one of the toddler mothers went over to ask them nicely to tone it down a little. We couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but the body language was universal: open hands, pointing out the young child close by, gentle downward motion to ask to quieten down a bit. All standard.

Now, where I come from the response is to apologise and to calm it down a little. San Diego, not a bit of it – the response was immediate from (let’s call him) shorty, tattooed, baggy pants guy (or shorty, for short): “NOBODY TELLS ME TO QUIETEN THE F*** DOWN! NOBODY! DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, M*****F******?”. The girls started shouting at each other, then slapping each other, then the guys started shouting at each other, then pushing each other. At this point shorty pulls a knife, screams and lunges for the other guy, who (after a short period of almost visibly soiling his board shorts) plucks up his courage, smacks shorty in the face, picks up his skateboard and smacks shorty in the face, then picks up an oil-drum trash can and – wait for it – smacks shorty in the face. The lifeguards turn up, shorty waves his knife at them, and as a result seven (we counted them) police cars turned up and the police proceeded in an orderly fashion to – you guessed it – smack shorty in the face. Instant karma I guess. Shorty was then carted off to the cells.

It was extraordinary. During all of this the toddlers kept playing and we kept eating our ice creams, about 15 yards away. We finished our ice creams, the cops started taking witness statements. People stopped taking pictures and we rushed home.

You see, I had a wash on.