Last night after work, since the sun was nicely out, we decided to grab a quick beer down at the Barley Mow, a much more traditional old man's pub than a lot of the other pretentious bars around Shoreditch. What I love about pubs here in the summer is that everyone's outside on the pavement and its easy to grab a beer at the bar! After a few drinks there, myself, Jake and John decided to grab some food over the road at The Diner - a classic American diner of a million movie scenes with red vinyl booths, vintage car pictures and booming 60s music offset by dim lighting. It's just what you want after a couple of pints after work on a Friday evening.

I went for the burger option which was a really tasty so certainly a good choice there. After the meal, we went back to the Barley Mow for one before calling it a night and all headed home. Giulz was staying with us the weekend, so waited up some time for him to arrive before getting some sleep.

Yesterday morning, after a fairly early start and a bit of a lie in, I decided to change my plans from heading out to Swinley to keeping it more local in the road bike instead around Richmond Park. Only managed a single loop around the park, but good to have gotten out and a bit of fresh air to start the day. You could also tell it was the start of the warmer weather by the sheer number of other cyclists out and about!

After heading home and a quick shower, I made my way out towards Tattenham Corner, the nearest station to The Hill. Everyone else was there already, with a few of the guys having been there since 8am to set up the gazebo, blankets and a decent area for the lot of us.

It was just as busy as any other year, except this time it was a lot cooler than before. The warm sunny weather from the morning didn't continue into the afternoon out to Epsom unfortunately. I didn't put down any bets this time, maybe I learned my lesson last year by not winning anything, but it certainly seemed a lot tamer this year compared to those in the past. I'm blaming the lack of sunshine for that! However, in the couple of times there was a break in cloud cover and the sun popped out, there was a massive cheer from The Hill to welcome the few minutes of summer :)

After a good few hours out there for the afternoon, a few of us decided to catch the early train back to London. By early, it was one soon after the basin derby, which was nice and quiet getting back. We weren't all that keen to spend 2 or 3 hours again trying to get home like last year. Once back in Putney, we decided to have a cheeky Pimms in the sun at the Arab Boy before heading home for a couple of hours downtime.

I think myself, Will and Giulz could easily have stayed in last night, but Lozzie was keen to head to her party and managed to convince us to get up and out. I was off to Shannon's birthday in Balham, and they were off to a house party also in Balham which they tried to convince me to go to instead. Once the taxi gas arrived and there was a mad panic to get ready, we headed out towards Balham - then to the house party and I carried on over to the Balham Bowls Club. I was rather late in getting to the BBC, but had always said I wasn't sure if or when I'd make it through after the races. A few familiar work people there and a couple of others I hadn't seen in ages. Was good out there, I like the venue and the vibe of the Bowls Club, not sure why I hardly actually go there. I guess Balham isn't the most practical of places to go to, but still enjoy a night out that way.

This morning I made a good effort to get up early. It was a fantastic summers day, so glad I didn't waste it sleeping in. I had planned to meet Uns early to help with the house, but since I was through rather early, decided to head into Waterloo and take a stroll across to London Bridge and disk up the mornings sun. Plus I had my camera with me few a shot it two.

From London Bridge I made my way down to her place and spent a few hours at the house getting a bit of order in the lounge and garden. Still plenty to do there, but at least it's a start. From the house, we hopped on a bus and headed over to the hotel where she's booked in for the week while they finish up with the buildings. For a Premier Inn near to Deptford, it's surprisingly quite nice. Very basic, but at least it's something for the week.

We decided we'd head into Greenwich for lunch, and while walking down the high street we passed Davy's Wine Bar which looked really nice and quite unique, so we decided to stop there and have lunch outside in the sun. I had the lamb which really was delicious, and Uns went for the Sunday roast beef. Davy's Wine Bar was first established back in 1972 and has grown to the point where it now stocks over 100 different wines, including a large variety of both old- and new-world bottles and fine wines.

From Davy's Wine Bar we walked down into the centre of Greenwich for an ice-cream at Black Vanilla, a family run business serving premium quality gelato made freshly on site. Afterwards we took a slow walk through Greenwich Park up to the Observatory at the top to admire the panoramic view from the Shard to Canary Wharf and over to the O2.

From the top, we noticed a fairly massive cruise liner moored just down from Greenwich Pier which we thought we'd check out. It turned out to be the MS Columbus 2, a Renaissance cruise ship built in France back in 1998 and able to carry up to 824 passengers. It's always quite a sight to see a ship of that size in the Thames, similar to the HMS Illustrious a couple of weeks ago.

After sometime by the Columbus we made our way back past the Cutty Sark and stopped there briefly to watch a bit of entertainment with three guys playing music, two on the guitars and one on the double bass. They were pretty good and had the attention of a decent number of people sitting on the steps watching. It's another thing I love about London, the randomness of events like that! Once they were done with their last song, we headed up towards the bus and made our way home.