The Golden Gate Bridge looking south to San Francisco
Buffeted
by winds off the Pacific ocean, lit by bright Californian sun and approached by
the most famous bridge in the world, San Francisco is an enchanting jumble of
eclectic Victorian architecture, palm trees and shining glass skyscrapers,
ringed by the tide-swirled waters of the Bay. On the streets where ‘little
cable cars climb halfway to the stars’, Italianate confections of barley-sugar
columns and plaster swags jostle New England-style clapboard houses
and Bavarian edifices with wooden balconies. Rosettes and stars picked out in
gilt adorn Edwardian homes with gables and porches reached by long flights of
steps, pretty pastel pinks and yellows abut crisp white paint and mock-medieval
stone, and neo-Classical mansions look out to the dusty hills of the Marin
County. In the Financial District, gleaming towers of polished glass are topped
with Gothic battlements offering views of the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island.
To the west, paths meander through Golden Gate Park, past the delicate Japanese
Tea Garden and Conservatory of Flowers, to the sea, from where the road winds
north along the coast, past the remains of silver magnate Aldoph Sutro’s magnificent glass-roofed
swimming baths to the Golden Gate Bridge, every bit as breathtaking as it was
when it was built at the height of the Great Depression.
If
you had told me a year ago that I would have left my beloved English
countryside and be living in San Francisco, I would have laughed. I am a
country girl to the core, and like nothing better than a long day’s hunting
followed by a gin & tonic by the fire and roast beef for dinner. Yet on a
five-day visit to friends last November, I fell in love with this airy, windy,
friendly City by the Bay, and resolved to return.
Hunting with the Cleveland for Horse & Hound
It
was Carla Carlisle who prompted the adventure. I didn’t know anything about San
Francisco before, and had originally planned to spend my November break hunting
in France, but she insisted I take the opportunity to come. As the writer of the
enormously popular ‘Spectator’ column on the back page of Country Life, Carla had long entranced
readers with her accounts of life as the Mississippi-born wife of an English
gentleman in Suffolk and, having sub-edited her work for some years,
I admired and trusted her opinion. If she thought I would love a place, I
would. And she was right - six months later, I had quit my much-loved job as
deputy chief sub-editor of Country Life and embarked on a new life
writing and travelling in California.
My life before this American trip had been full of good times, but, bar a couple of holidays, I had never lived abroad or, indeed, travelled a great deal. outside of Europe. Instead
of taking a gap year, I had gone straight from school to the University of St
Andrews, where I studied English and Art History. My four years there were a wonderful blend of walks along the beach, fantastic theatre and the odd essay, and, on moving to London afterwards, I was lucky
enough to start researching different projects at Country Life magazine. This led
to my first full-time job as sub-editor in October 2006, and promotion to
deputy chief sub-editor the following spring. Beyond sub-editing, I have
written features for Country Life and hunt reports for Horse & Hound,
possibly the best job in the world for anyone who loves hunting as I do. I have
enjoyed every moment, and will treasure the friends I made for the rest of my
life, but as I passed the grand old age of 30, the wanderlust that had been
growing for some time became too strong to resist. When I visited San
Francisco, I found the answer.
Me at Land's End with the Golden Gate Bridge beyond
This blog will tell the story of my Californian adventure, and how a girl from the wilds of Worcestershire found herself exploring the sun-soaked, windswept, cosmopolitan, bohemian, beautiful and beguiling cocktail that is San Francisco.
