Last week, at home, we decided that we need to organise a drink and meal at the Arab Boy, so Tuesday it was. Since we planned to meet a bit after 7 only, I decided that would be enough time for a quick beer after work, so a few of us made our way over to the Wheatsheaf there by Borough Market. We landed up standing outside in the covered section they have with the outdoor heaters, which was actually quite nice and rather warm, considering the miserable weather at the moment. After a quick pint there, I dashed off towards home to meet up with Si and Loz at the Arab Boy. They have their Tuesday night pie night, so that made the decision what to order that bit easier. It wasn't all that busy in there, but didn't really matter, good catch up meal with the others.

On Wednesday Uns has organised a curry night with her crowd out at Brick Lane, so after work I met up with her nearby Shoreditch High Street after grabbing a coffee from Brick Lane Coffee shop. The others were having pre drinks at The Luxe by Spitalfields Market, which wasn't too far from where we were, so headed over there for a refreshing pint before our meal.

From the pub it wasn't too far to Brick Lane, basically back where I started earlier, then came the mission of deciding where to eat. Every place had a good deal for us, they all had some chef of the year award or another and each guy tried to convince us they were the best. But we just landed up deciding on the Brick Lane Clipper curry house, after all, I reckon they're pretty much all the same in the end.

After a quiet Thursday night at home, on Friday I was out with Gav at the Battersea Beer festival which is the their 23rd annual festival they've had. It had opened last Wednesday and finished up on Friday night, and the entire event is run by volunteers who are members of CAMRA, which is the Campaign for Real Ale group around the UK. I got there a bit late I guess and had to queue for ages to get in, but eventually made it inside and met up with Gav, Jane and a couple of their friends who I'd met previously after the rugby out in Richmond. I started off with just half pints, figured I'd swap between a few and try a range, but after two or three halves I got bored of refilling, so moved onto the full pints instead :) Just made more sense!

They had a food court there as well, with your standard but tasty beer festival food, so that went down well, as were the beers. By around half ten they started to run out of just about every barrel they had, and you could sense the panic in the room :) At least the international stand still had plenty of Kölsch left, so it wasn't too much of a crisis. By then they had started to usher people out so we called it a night and the others moved onto the Falcon for another one or two but I decided to finish up then and head home.

In Saturday midday I headed around to Will's house for another attempt at photos for his headshots he's wanted. Thought I'd give my new Canon Speedlite Flash a test run. After a few hours there, I was off back home and met up with Haig who was up for the night. We didn't leave the house for quite sometime, landed up chatting with Si and Loz for a while until we got on the road and made our way out to Angel. Simon and Charlene were over from Dublin for the weekend, and they had plans the previous couple of nights, so Noel had organised for everyone to meet up on Saturday night at The Seagrass in Angel. It took us a few attempts to find the place, since we were looking for at the restaurant names and didn't realise it was actually a pop-up, inside Manzes, a 19th century pie-and-mash shop. During the day it seems that Manzes serve their pie-and-mash and then in the evening, they shut up shop and The Seagrass team take over, lay the tables and start cooking a more British cuisine. Even thought it started out as a pop-up, it seems to be fairly well established now, with them open in the evenings from Wednesday through to Saturday.

There wasn't a huge variety in the choice of food, one of two options for starters as well as one of two options for the mains and then a cheese board at the end. However, the food was outstanding - I had pigeon risotto for starters and duck with potatoes in a chorizo stew for mains. So good! Apparently the menu changes and rotates nightly, so it's a bit of luck what you get when you go there, but I suppose with a limited choice of food, you know that'll be their specialty. After our dinner and having run out of booze, we moved down the road to Round Midnight, a jazz and blues bar on the corner, not far from the restaurant. We had to queue before going in as they were apparently at capacity inside, but soon got in, at least a little while before the live band finished.

The band was quite good, playing a good mix of jazz and blues, and finished up around midnight when a DJ took over the controls. After the band finished, it emptied out quite a bit, so at least we managed to grab a table until closing time. Then decided on the taxi option to get us home.

Yesterday morning Haig and myself met up with Si and Seamus down at Cappuccino on Upper Richmond Road for breakfast. It's been a while since I was last there, been favouring Tried & True recently instead. Then after breakfast it was back home and just chilled out in the lounge, half watching the Ireland England game which turned out to be fairly boring anyway. Other than that just sorted out some photos on my laptop and certainly avoided going outside in the cold and miserable. Roll on March and better weather...