Well that was a restless night. You'd think after all that travel and bugger all sleep, that I would have crashed and slept for hours. Not so! Had a rubbish sleep and was wide awake at 3:00am. Couldn't get back to sleep properly, just dozing off and on until finally accepting the fact that I wouldn't get back to sleep, so got out of bed at 6:00am.
After a bit of an easy start we headed into Baker Street to meet up with Steve and Jillian at 11:00 - the time of the first beer. It was right at that moment that I knew it was going to be a long day and tomorrow would probably be pretty slow. Oh well, when in Rome (well, London actually)........
It as great to catch up with Steve and the rest of the family. We'd only just seen him when he came back to NZ last October to see their father. And we'd also only just seen Eleanor as she had been staying with us for about 7 months and only left in April. But we hadn't seen Jillian for over10 years. We only had a few minutes to catch up before the girls took off to meet up with the rest of the girls going to the Hens party.
So for the lads, it was off to meet up with Joe (the groom) and the rest of the Stag Party crowd. The party took across town to several different drinking establishments.
We started out with a few beers at a bar close by which was followed by a whiskey tasting session at the Cadenhead Whiskey shop. This turned out to be great fun, sampling seven different whiskeys and even learning a bit about the history of whiskey as well. Too be fair, given the fatigue from the previous day's travel and the few beers that had already been drunk, then mixed up with some outstanding whiskeys, I forgot a hell of a lot more than I learnt!
From the whiskey bar, we headed around the corner to the Barley Mow pub, small enough that you couldn't get more than 20-25 people in it. Several pints of lager later and it was off to the final destination, a Medieval Banquet near Tower Bridge. Getting there was great fun. A couple of taxi loads of drunk lads cruising around central London - perfect!!! Drunken singing and people hanging half out taxi windows while driving across Tower Bridge. I'm pretty the sure the cabbie really liked us - he sure seemed happy when he dropped us off!
The banquet was a bit of a laugh, with everyone having to get dressed up in period costumes - no knights in armour though. I suspect that may have been a bit too dangerous.
As you'd expect, a medieval banquet consist of loads of loud singing, banging on tables, copious amounts of ale and meat that you eat with your hands, with the food and drink being served by wenches of course.
The evening ended up slightly differently than planned. Steve, Jack and myself planned to head back to our B&B, but somewhere along the way we lost Jack - and he had the keys grrrrrrrrrr.
Rather than risking not finding Jack all night, Steve decided he'd head back home and I headed back to the B&B with the hope that Jack was there was well. Unfortunately not!! However about 20 mins later Jack comes strolling up the road safely with the keys safely still in his possession. So it was straight off to bed with the hope of a better nights sleep.
All in all, a pretty entertaining day
I'll get an update from Cindy on the Hens party and add it another update
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