I Had some really interesting feedback from my last post about the London riots so thanks guys for your feedback. Always appreciated. Thankfully, it's all over and the guy I mentioned, the student who had his jaw broken and then was robbed, well over £12,000 was raised for him in the end which made me happy.

So last weekend I went out in London as a rather last minute decision thing. It was a friend’s birthday and I had been itching to have a night out away from Southend for ages. When I'm not seeing Alex, I have to work most weekends so a mini weekend night out was very welcome. In the say Sat, me and Alex went and played pool at my local club. I got Alex signed up with his own yearly membership and am hoping to improve his game so by the time he gets to my age, he will be a grand master...just like his Dad.

So after pool and after Alex left for the evening, I hopped on the train down to London, got on the tube at Liverpool Street and headed down to South Wimbledon where my crazy friend Laura lives. When I got there, people were drinking in the garden, South London was just coming alive and people were arriving. Now what I expected in my mind and what I got from the night was exactly the same thing...lots of different people from different backgrounds (we had a couple Kiwi's, Australians, Swedish, Slovenian and Spanish folks with us). We all sang happy birthday to Laura's friend Tsjasa (pictured chewing on my tie!) and it was all very low budget but in a more personal kind of way. Exactly what I expected from the big city. Bohemian.

We headed to a club in Clapham which turned out to be bloody good. It was playing funky house which usually isn't my kind of thing but I enjoyed it regardless. Everyone got rather drunk but everyone seemed happy and there really was a large variety of people in the club. Getting a cab back at 4:30am was a bit of a mission especially with the amount of people acting as taxi drivers by just using their regular car! Still we managed to get back eventually.

The next day, feeling very fragile, me and Laura went and got a wicked hamburger from some restaurant in Wimbledon. I was coincidently thinking the other day how it is near impossible to find a decent burger in England. The closest we usually have is McDonald’s and that just looks like someone wiped their kitchen floor with it. This burger I ate certainly was the stuff of hangover fantasies. I ate and ate and ate and then ate some more.

We walked around for a little bit before I had to leave to come home. It was nice to laze on the train, read my Kindle and feel pretty content about partying with friends and enjoying the London lifestyle...if only for a weekend.