Day one in the beach boardwalk house and the housemates don't know what time or day it is

IT’S 11.15am and the sun has started to burn off the clouds that have sat over the ocean since we got up. At 5.30am.

We managed to stay up until about 9.30 last night after the 11-hour flight. We bumped into an old colleague and his family on the flight to LA. I replaced Phil Thomas at Practical Photography magazine in 1988 and he now heads up a huge business to business festival for the advertising industry. He has headed north to San Francisco and east to Montana. We’ve come south to Newport Beach, Orange County.

The beach house is great, with only the concrete ‘boardwalk’ separating us from the sand.

I was first in the sea at about 7am, followed by Katy after breakfast and a game of beach volleyball. Father-in-law Bill walked about a mile to the pier and didn’t think eight o’clock was too early for a beer to get change for a Los Angeles Times.

I’ve split my shorts and Katy can’t keep her bikini bottoms on in the surf, so we’re going to the mall for replacements before we get arrested.