The Diavala Restaurant, Geyserville

A morning walk with Ozzie the dog around the wealthy Pacific Avenue area of Santa Rosa where the houses are splendidly palatial, especially the McDonald Mansion, built in 1869 as a summer residence for an influential road building engineer and member of the San Francisco Stock exchange, Col Mark McDonald, living in San Francisco, allowed us an almost guilt free trip to have our lunch at the Diavala restaurant in Geyserville, in the centre of the wine tasting region of Sonoma County.

Pizza inferno, fish tacos, roasted asparagus salad topped with a fried egg and rigatoni ragu were consumed with our usual gusto and washed down with wine and beer. His Lordship also felt it necessary to taste a cannoli dessert, he being an avid watcher of the American sitcom 'Everybody Loves Raymond' where cannolis are regularly tasted and he not knowing what they were. He generously allowed me a dainty mouthful.

We drove home through the Alexander and Napa Valleys, filled with acres and acres of fresh green vineyards in serried ranks of geometrical exactitude against a background of rolling golden hills and a deep blue sky; not a cloud in sight.
Heaven indeed.

There is talk of artichokes for supper, but I think a rice cake would probably be sufficient.