WELCOME TO PALM (it never rains here) SPRINGS

Palm Springs boasts 350 days of sunshine a year and only five and a half inches of rainfall. It is in the desert! Compare this to rainfall on the moors in the West Country which can be over 180 inches a year! This is one of the reasons I came to California and not Cornwall... But today in Palm Springs the rain was TORRENTIAL, with flash floods, thunder and lightening and power cuts. I overheard a lady in a shop complaining because there were no umbrellas for sale! They just don't have them! This is the view from my window this morning...no way was I going to visit the Desert botanical gardens or walk in the canyons or laze by the beautiful heated swimming pool...Hopefully the sun will be back before I finish my week here as the scenery is spectacular and there are lots of interesting things to visit such as the oases and palm groves. You can go on a tour and see where Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope and their contemporaries had homes. But I can't help thinking that fewer and fewer people will be interested in these tours because they just haven't ever heard of Bob Hope. Similarly, in Las Vegas, the Liberace Museum closed its doors for the last time on Sunday - no one goes anymore because they simply haven't heard of Liberace. If you have, then you are over 50! Behind these clouds are the San Bernardino mountains...