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Have returned from the contemporary North American equivalent of touring the Houses of the Great: the Reno Tour.

Saw a lovable (human-scale, cherished) house which we cannot have, but the people who do have it seem so excellent that we do not begrudge it. Much. It was the only one on the Reno Tour where they'd done the work themselves. The centrepiece was a chevron-shaped concrete island embedded with stones from the beach below. They distressed all their own cabinets. The trim wasn't quite finished, so one strip of wood had all their phone numbers still scratched into it.

When you stood in the back yard, as inlandsea pointed out, the house disappeared. It was almost all glass, and it reflected the view, so you saw ocean and trees in all directions. At the back of the property, there was a rickety path down to a swathe of sandy beach.

We had a picnic up at a secret bit of park around Land's End -- dead-end road, rough black rocks below, little green point of land just big enough for one bench and about a foot of clearance on either side to get 'round it. Ancient and giant signs informing us that the phone cable went underwater Right There. We ate mightily of salmon candy and bison sausage, goat cheese, tapenade, avacado, pickled beans, and fresh basil that lit in my mouth like the green fuse of spring.

First real spring day. So bright. So blue. And apparently it's supposed to snow tomorrow? I love the poetry of that.

Sunstruck. Tired, not good for much. Idly thinking about cleaning the kitchen. Which we also have hand-distressed, though not so much on purpose, and I don't know what the landlord will say.

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