Despite Tom being officially married already, we figured since his first wedding was coming up quite soon we'd best throw some sort of stag do beforehand, and with him away in Poland next Saturday, the next best option was yesterday. So after some last minute planning left up to me and BigWill, the plan was to meet around Borough Market or London Bridge area at lunch time yesterday and go from there. Tom, Will, Ollie and Russell met up beforehand, then I caught up with then at Katzenjammers, just off Borough High Street.

After a quick beer there it was off to Covent Garden for lunch at one of the burger joints there in the square. Our options were either MEATmarket or to try one of the new American chains Five Guys or Shake Shack. In the end we settled on MEATmarket, which is upstairs and overlooking the Covent Garden market. As expected, their burgers were just like they are at MEATliquor and MEATmission - so damn good! :)

After a decent lunch, we walked back over to Charing Cross and stopped in at Gordon's Wine Bar for some sophisticated cheese and wine outside on Watergate Walk, making the most of the wild weather while it still lasted. We stayed there for a couple of glasses each before deciding on Albannach - a Scottish contemporary whisky bar and restaurant just off Trafalgar Square for a tasting tray of whiskies between the five of us. I'm not usually a whisky drinker but quite enjoy a bit of the Dalwhinnie 15 year old and the Bunnahabhain 12 year old whisky. Worth remembering for next time I'm in the area I guess.

Other then looking quite out of place inside there, had a good few tasters each before moving on and towards Temple. We thought we'd settle for a beer on the deck of the moored up Bar & Co boat, but first we popped into Temple Walkabout to catch the end of the SA vs New Zealand game which wasn't in our favour at all! So no point in staying in the Walkabout - was slightly more enjoyable back on the deck under the late afternoon sun.

Once it started getting dark we were back on our feet and headed off down The Stand to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese which is always a fairly decent pub to pop into, and got a bit more character than a lot of the others. After some time there we made our way back towards Charing Cross and into Players Lounge which luckily had no queue, compared to the mass of people waiting to get in when we tried going for Will's birthday.

Not sure if the others had been there before, but everyone seemed to have a good time... I think. There was a new guy on the piano who I thought wasn't quite as good as the previous guy, but hey, he still took requests and still played the classics, so all good! Getting home was a mission trying to find a taxi and landed up getting a bus via New Cross Gate instead.

Certainly feeling a bit sorry for myself today, but with it being such a nice day outside I'm glad I was forced woke up early to make the most of it. Uns and I both felt like a roast at The Telegraph for lunch, followed by the afternoon napping in Telegraph Hill Park. Unfortunately we all think that's now the end of summer, can't see us getting another wild afternoon like that again. Oh well, had to happen sometime I guess, but can't say we didn't take this summer to the max!