About

I’m Sally Dean*, and this is the first time I’ve tried to keep a blog. I live and work in a small town in California called Ojai, and have lived here for five years now.

Ojai is very beautiful, and I feel very lucky to live here. I moved here from Santa Barbara, where I was at school, and I hope I get to stay here forever.

I work as a tennis coach at a local spa, and I used to play in minor tournaments around Southern California. I gave up playing competitively after college, when I realized that although I was pretty good, so were a thousand and one other players … I wasn’t headed to Wimbledon!

I’m slowly developing other interests on the side, things that eventually might become a business once I get tired of teaching tennis. But at the moment I’m very happy with my work, and plan to continue it for a long time.

I’ve been experimenting with recipes ever since I went to college, and have some vague thoughts about perhaps opening a restaurant and/or bed and breakfast in the future where I could make use of my cooking skills. I love to bake, and to make special treats for breakfast, but I have only very limited interest in bigger-scale menus. The spa that I work at has a marvellous restaurant, and I’m friends with many of the chefs … while I appreciate their skill in producing multi-course gourmet banquets, it’s not work that I find appealing.

Ojai is the Southern California capital of bed and breakfasts, so I know there’ll be a ready market for me when and if I go ahead with this idea.

* I’m a bit of a privacy nut, so am choosing not to use my exact name on this blog … instead, I’m using a combination of names from within my extended family. Those who know me will recognize me, and those who don’t can simply enjoy the stories about my life. Hope that’s cool with y’all?