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Our columnist Justin Moorhouse enjoys – or maybe endures – a little Lancashire weather on a family holiday in San Francisco

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IT’D been a pleasant flight, more than pleasant to be honest. Years of budget airlines and short hops to Spain had almost removed that idea that air travel is glamorous, well it can be. Those almost antique films of trans-Atlantic luxury feel a million miles away from cramming your family into the smallest space possible after being financially hammered for the temerity of wanting to take a suitcase on holiday.

Anyhow, a touch of that glamour was what we were experiencing, the four of us: mum, dad, 20-yearold student son and 12-year-old daughter, lucky to be enjoying Virgin Atlantic’s new direct flight from Manchester to San Francisco. As the plane banked for its final approach I peered out of the window desperate for a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge. Searching for that familiar reddish steel structure I considered the similarity of trips on the M55 heading for Blackpool and looking for the tower.

What I didn’t expect when I arrived in California was that the weather had a touch of the Fylde Coast about it too. It’s mid-July and there’s a slight chill in the air, coupled with a rolling fog that’s normal apparently, there’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain that says ‘the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco’. Which isn’t fair, the sun shines and it’s warm, but boy when that fog rolls in, you could imagine you were in Cleveleys and not California