Last week I managed a couple of cycles in the evening after work, mainly around Richmond Park and the Putney area. It wasn't been the best summer in terms of the weather this year, but managed to get out on the bike whenever there's been a decent evening or weekend afternoon.

On Wednesday it was myself, Una, Paul and Carol who met up by Leicester Square for dinner and movies, something I don't do very often. We headed up to China Town and decided on one of the Chinese restaurants there, the exact name I'm not 100% sure about. All I know is that it was somewhere along Lisle street. The food was excellent, and plenty of it, so lunch for Thursday was sorted. After dinner it was down to Leicester Square and to the cinema for American Pie The Reunion which looked brilliant and I was quite keen to watch it!

On Friday I managed another cycle around Richmond Park in the evening and attempted to snap a few sunset photos then met up with Uns at the Arab Boy later in the evening for dinner and a drink there. Unfortunately the photos didn't come out quite as planned, will have to work out my mistakes and head back there again!

On Saturday we started off with breakfast down at Tried & True then a bit of shopping down the high street. There seemed to be a bit of commotion down Upper Richmond Road, almost like a small protest, so thought I'd hop of my bike later and check that out. I bought myself a nice new pair of sunglasses after having slightly misplaced my other ones at the Rugby Sevens last weekend, so decided I needed a new pair with the summer (hopefully) fast approaching. After a bit of a shop, I headed home and jumped on my bike to investigate the earlier commotion around the area. It turned out to be hundreds of anti-cuts campaigners staging a "street party" protest outside Deputy PM Nick Clegg's home, who are targeting high profile people who they believe are avoiding paying tax and are now targeting politicians. It was fairly lively and quite peaceful really, and a bit random to be honest. But whatever floats their boat I guess. After hanging around there briefly, I met up with Noel and headed off to Richmond Park for a bit of chilled out ride around, soaking up the decent summer weather we're having. Later on, once back and showered, I headed out to Greenwich to Gav's place for an evening braai and drinks with a few others. Not a bad way at all to spend a summery Saturday around here!

Yesterday Uns and I made our way out to Crystal Palace, about a half hour train ride from London Bridge. I'd never been out there before, and only know the name from football and having had those old premiership football trading cards as a kid. So it was all fairly new ground for me. Just before the park there's an awesome remote controlled car track there, the Crystal Palace Circuit and it's a road track with plenty of action going on. I landed up chatting to a few of the guys there and asking them about the track, area, racing, cars, etc and still in the hope to find a decent off-road track somewhere in the greater London area to take the Savage out to. But good to get a smell of those nitro engines being revved up and hear those tyres screeching around the corners. Well for me at least, Uns didn't seem to be quite as interested :)

Once I had been pulled away from the circuit, we headed back to the park to chill out in the sun and get some lunch in the park cafe. The rest of the afternoon was just spent relaxing in the sun and under the massive trees all around the park. There certainly was an interesting group of people around the park, mostly locals I'd guess, but made for some interesting people watching for the afternoon! We stayed out there until close to sunset when it started getting a bit cooler, then headed home for a bit of Sunday night pizza for dinner.