Last Friday turned into an unexpected half day, with a lunch time meeting down at the Barley Mow with JP, Jake and Shannon and after quite a few beers some good brain storming, we decided to stay on and sack off the afternoon. So not a bad end to the week! That evening it was Will and Ally's birthday drinks in town, so once 'work' was done for the afternoon, I hopped on a bus and headed over to the Strand.

By then the rain had really started to come down and I landed up fairly soaked during the brief walk up to the Nell of Old Drury where Will had organised to have birthday drinks, which was a repeat of his birthday last year. I met Uns there and since we were the first to arrive, decided to head to McD's down the road for a bite to eat. By the time we got back, others had started to arrive, so that then worked out well.

After some time at the Nell, we decided to move pubs and head on over to the Coal Hole on the Strand, about a 5 minute walk away. The rain certainly hadn't let up at all, so anyone who wasn't already soaked landed up drenched by the time we got there. At least it was nice and dry inside the pub, and after a couple there we thought we'd move onto the Players Lounge underneath the Charing Cross arches. There was a queue outside with a one-in-one-out policy and after waiting a while in the queue and getting bored, we decided to give up on that and call it a night. It would've been good if we'd gotten straight in, but no one was up for queuing by then.

Saturday was again another miserable day outside and just around the house most of the morning. Uns was meeting up with Carol and Laurie in the afternoon, do I decided to head into town to grab a few things from Oxford Street. Later on I met up with Uns once she was done and we caught a bus over to Shoreditch where we'd planned to meet up with Gav and Jane for dinner, as well as Monique and Simon. They'd booked a table at Amici Miei which is on Kingsland Road just up from Shoreditch High Street. It turned out there was an issue with our reservation and they'd booked us in for the previous night, so while they were sorting that out, we headed next door to Due Sardi for a beer until they called us over. Eventually all was sorted and we got ourselves a table. Gav had claimed it to currently be his favourite pizza in London, and could see where he was coming from. After a good meal, we headed down to London Bridge and got the train home.

Last night I met up with Paul after work and we thought we'd head to MEATliquor and see how bad the queue is. I'd not yet been to it since they opened up in 2011, but knew there was a constant queue of people waiting to get in. Turned out it wasn't too bad, maybe a 20 minute wait, certainly less than I expected it to be. Definitely my favourite burger joint at the moment - both the food and the dimly lit grunge atmosphere inside there.

After completely over-indulging inside there, I decided to avoid getting the tube at Bond Street and rather make my way down to Green Park to try walk off some of the burger, or the chips, or the chicken wings... Even though I'm still feeling fairly full from last night, the good news is it's my last day here today before holidays! Off tomorrow morning to Vegas, then down to L.A. and up San Fran, returned the Monday after next. Cannot wait!