Festival of José 2008

Johnny Wine turned the big <snip> the other week, bringing us down to Clapham for a night out south of the river. Not ideal, I know, but we made the best of things...

We tried to persuade Charlie Boorman to join us 'by any means' (see what I did there?) but he declined. A shame - I had even refrained from launching into a set-piece rant about his ludicrous tv show... a different model car doesn't count as a new 'form of transport' you clown! To be fair though, he seemed like a good bloke.



Here's Jose and his entourage:

There was a ceasefire in effect for the night...

Ivor, Johnny, and housemates Shane and Niall

Present but not pictured were Locky (l) and Lenny (r)...

Guns and Ximi share a jimbrace

Do do do!!!

Yes, there was a Jagerbomb or two for the night that was in it...

Housewarming update!!

Some new images have been released by the PR people...

Pretty suave...

PEMBROKE

Thames walk

I went on a solo walk today (as James is home at a wedding) to enjoy a beautiful sunny day - 22 degrees and blue skies in fact!! You'd never think it was October!

It is tens minutes from our place so great and handy!

Here are some photos...

Housewarming!

Better late than never but we finally threw a housewarming bash - the reason for the delay was of course the difficulty of finding a date suitable for all of our vast London circle...
[Translation: Ivor had a whole pile of weddings and stags and this was the only weekend he was around...]

Laura came up trumps with delicious Rocky Road chocolate thingys, the pizza delivery lad threw in a bottle of red for us saving the family business with our order, and we finally got to polish off the QUMAS Company of the Year 2006 champagne! Johnny wore his eclectic ROSSLARE TO PEMBROKE jumper in case there were any quiet moments that needed filling...

We had a pint in the Colton across the road to give our guests the full flavour of life in Queen's Club Gardens, before we headed into town. For reasons still unknown to all but Angela, we ended up in a certain well-known London establishment, generally frequented by males without their partners... We did see Kian from Westlife in there which excited the girls, but we quickly moved on to a venue more appropriate for our group!

Great night though!

Jim, Conor, Sarah, Ivor, Laura, Johnny, Angela, Flor and special guest star Cherry!

You ain't seen this, right...

This entire post won't make any sense unless you are familiar with Gideon Soames from The Fast Show:

Royal Day Out!

Finally the last of our catch up posts! With the weather getting colder and the winter creeping up on us, we are not likely to be embarking on too many more of these expeditions.

We are always haunted everytime we go on our touist adventures! Blue skies again! We strolled through St James' Park admiring Buckingham Palace to the left and Whitehall to the right.

It was the last day Buckingham Palace had its state rooms open to the public so we took the tour around inside. Very impressive but I'm afraid no pictures allowed!

After our tour of the state rooms we walked through the Queen's gardens and then walked home via Hype Park. I am currently reading Diana's book so was interested to visit her official memorial.

Below are a few of the pictures we took during the day.

Portobello Road...

We also squeezed in a trip to Notting Hill for the famous Portobello Road market. This was more Sarah's baby than mine, as it was all antiques, clothes, and other bric-à-brac...

The day after we were there, we saw the new Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse sketch show, featuring a superb piece that captures the vibe of Notting Hill nicely for me...

Ho Chi Minh's doughnuts

Another catch-up post of another weekend of touristry! This time it was the painfully clichéd open-top bus tour, but it was really good fun! The weather was superb, the guides were entertaining, and they even threw in a river 'cruise' from London Bridge to Westminster.

We learnt lots about our new city, from plagues to fires to Henry VIII's wives. But what really blew me away was the blue plaque on a building on Regent Street commemorating the hotel where Ho Chi Minh worked as a pastry chef prior to ejecting the French and the Americans from Vietnam!

Regent St Festival

Going back a few weeks now and shame on me for not keeping up with my blogs posts! A girl that I work with recommended that we go to the Regent St Festival. Since we had not yet been in that neck of the woods, we said we would go along. They had closed off the lower part of Regent St, from Oxford Circus down to Picadilly Circus, which was good to see it so pedestrianised. Turned out it was a festival to celebrate British life but we were only concerned with looking for somewhere to eat!

Here are some photos of the festival and some more of when we strolled on further down towards Whitehall and Westminster featuring the first appearance of Jim’s Almaty champions hoody!