Our grown up weekend

This is so long overdue....so I am going to summarise as much as possible so as not to bore the few of you who may pop in for a visit!
Thursday night was ANOTHER work Christmas dinner which ended up at a late night pub called Break for the border...lots of dancing...in my uncomfortable boots...not too clever! I wisely shared a taxi home with a girl I work with, apparently once the pub closed the last of the party goers ended up at someones house until 06h00!!!! Yep, Dubliners DO know how to party...

This past weekend we went to the U.K for our 16th wedding anniversary, Malcolm bought tickets for an Amy MacDonald concert in Southampton as a surprise so I found myself at Dublin airport on the 19th December...Malcolm even got us priority boarding on Ryanair - smooth move!
From Gatwick we caught a train down to Southampton and walked to our hotel. We found an Italian place for dinner and then went to the concert. it was great seeing her live, she seemed nervous to start but once she got going she was great. Of course I know the words to most songs which is always fun!
After that we went to the Soul Cellar for drinks until we all got 'kicked' out because the water mains were getting turned off for emergency maintenance. We went back to the hotel bar for a nightcap before stumbling up to bed.
On Saturday we had breakfast in Southampton and then made a mad dash to the train and went to Clapham Junction and then caught a bus to Dave and Emily where we were staying on Saturday night.
We caught up with news and eventually went to the Toucan pub with Dave in SoHo where we met Adrian and Nicky. We had a couple of drinks there and then headed for the restaurant, Spaccanapoli. We had a fantastic dinner, the pizzas were done in a wood burning oven - the only way to REALLY enjoy the cheesy delicacy! For starters we ordered a few meze platters for the table and feasted on marinated peppers, anchovies, calamari, cheese, olives and lots more.
After dinner it was off to another pub - The Couch I think, across the road from some or other night club and the people watching proved to be very fascinating indeed. Slowly but surely our friends left, baby sitters to be relieved and trains to catch, but Dave, Emily, Malcolm and I caught the tube back towards home and then popped into a Thai restaurant which becomes a club/dance place (heaving mass of people basically) where we had another drink before calling it quits because the vibe was not great. We enjoyed a very delicious Dom Pedro made by Dave back at their place and listened to music and had some mellow conversation before succumbing to the pillow and duvet.
On Sunday we went to a mall in Wimbledon and had breakfast and did a bit of shopping and heard so many South African accents around us it was bizarre...like being back in S.A! We spent the afternoon chatting back at Dave and Emily's and then they dropped us off at the train station and we headed back to Gatwick for our flight home.