Our last morning here, opening the curtains to the view of the Hollywood sign and the freeway beneath our window.

We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, packed our bags and checked out of our cool and very comfortable hotel. In the time it took for us to take the elevator down to the lobby, our car was waiting and off we went.

We were heading past Mary’s old place on the Ventura freeway (again) to her new place to meet her. Would she remember who we are!? I mean, it’s been more than 24 hours since we last saw one another ;-)

Her new home in a leafy street is lovely and suits her well. She was waiting outside ready and jumped in the car. Nice to see her again!

We were heading for her local shopping centre, to visit Paper Source, once a favourite place to pick up unusual paper goods and book making bits and pieces. Now, it’s more of a gift store and as evidence, I left empty handed and Mary left having found a birthday gift she’d been looking for.

A few doors down is her local Chicos, where I hoped to find a bargain or two. I’d already bought a pair of white jeans in Twin Falls, reduced from $99 to $18, but that was in a closing sale and the store was poorly stocked. I hoped for better here in Studio City. It wasn’t to be however - I tried four pairs of trousers, all different and in chicos-style, I wasn’t sure which ones were discounted and which were not. Needless to say, I like the full price ones best (the black version of the white ones I’d bought last week) but was not going to pay $99 for them. The others ranged in price from $32 to just $9, but I decided that even at knock down prices, they just weren’t my thing and I left empty handed.

Someone else found a bargain, however - it was a productive morning for Mary!

Lunch at The Blue Dog, then, where we enjoyed great burgers - the last for a while - before heading just over the road to the cinema.

We always enjoy going to the movies here and with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on the programme, it seemed the obvious choice. OK, I’ll allow you to laugh at my expense when I say I hadn’t realised it was a Quentin Tarantino movie…I shut my eyes at times! But it was great, Leonardo Di Caprio was amazing and it was fun to watch just a few miles from where it was set.

It’s a long movie though and as we got past 5pm and it was still going (it started at 2.15) both my hero and I got a bit twitchy. We needed to get down the freeway to LAX and though it’s only just over a half hour journey when the traffic is good, it can take so much longer. Thankfully, we had time to drop Mary off at home, to say a brisk ‘bye and see you soon and to get on our way. As we drove past all the familiar names we waved goodbye (till the next time) and were thankful for a smooth journey.

Here were are in the lounge at LAX then. Our flight is on time and all being well we’ll be back in LHR tomorrow afternoon - an eight hour time difference means that hopefully, we will get a good night’s sleep tucked under a duvet!

It’s been a great trip. The road trip was as interesting as we’d hoped and our days in LA reminded us of how much we love it here. It had been too long…we were so glad to be back. But now, the thought of home is a lovely one!