Beer, pubs (and a bit of work)

The prospect of going back to the UK filled me with some dread, as I had seen headlines such as “rainiest summer ever in UK” over the past few months (I mean the rainiest summer in the history of the UK must be very rainy indeed!). But since my work demanded it, there was no choice but to go (OK, so it’s not like they had to twist my arm or anything, as I must I do miss old Blighty a bit…). I will not bore you with details about what I did work-wise, and will instead concentrate on the social aspect of my visit (which admittedly might be only marginally more interesting).








The first night I spent in Richmond, as Adrian had kindly offered to accommodate me for the night. So we dropped off my things at his flat (in a very typical Richmond neighborhood), and headed off to his local. After a pint there, we headed for the riverside, which is really a great place to hang out when the weather is good (which it was, in spite of my worst fears!). After another of pint there, were we met up with Amal in the town centre. After another drink (getting a bit repetitive..?) and a nice Italian meal, it was time to stumble back to Adrian’s flat.



Tuesday night I headed down to Guildford. I was staying at the Guildford Hotel (as always), which hadn’t changed at all (so all the staff was still eastern European, and the guests seem to be either from Russia or Newcastle). Needless to say, I really like the place. According to normal custom, I joined the old gang for the pub quiz at the Stoke.





Wednesday night was also spent in Guildford (getting there took me about 2 hours because of some confusion at the train station which meant I ended up taking the somewhat unusual route of Farnborough-Woking-Basingstoke-Woking-Guildford, instead of the somewhat more straightforward Farnborough-Woking-Guildford itinerary). After a delicious dinner at Stephane’s place, where we watched Italy unconvincingly beat Romania in rugby, we headed out to The Guildford Tup (a French bar in an English town, if you can imagine such a thing). After a few beers there, I ended up in Farenheit’s with Stephane and Maxim, where we drank beer and played the quiz machine until 2 in the morning (how sad is that?).



Thursday was spent in Fleet, starting with a few drinks after work with some colleagues at the Heron on the Lake. It’s a very nice pub when the weather is nice, with its beer garden by Fleet pond – and once again we were blessed with some great weather. After that we stumbled onwards to have a nice curry (another “English” specialty I must admit I miss…) at the Blue Room, Golden Circle, or whatever it was called.

So to summarize, what a great week, just like the good old days :-)