Harper's Bizarre- London Stag Hunting

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Lightning blog, this one, just sharing photos of a stag party which also doubled as something of a reunion...

One of my best and longest standing friends, Nick, is getting married at the end of this month, and this was his stag. Some people made all too brief appearances, others stayed for the full duration. Thankfully, someone had realised that we're too old for strippers and vomiting on ourselves. This was a slightly more mature affair, but we still managed much hilarity. Also, Nick himself works more hours a week the entire Italian civil service out together, so we were fortunately tied to London.

I arrived at Paddington to meet a friend from school, Al, who I haven't seen in over ten years. We hoofed it to Hampstead, settled in at the Holly Bush, and the others trickled in. Andy and Nick (also from school), Will (Nick's almost-brother-in-law), Michael and Richard- both former colleagues. The food was brilliant- wild boar sausages and mash for me, and there was plenty of ale or the black stuff had by all. There was also a tequila and other nasties for the best man. We went to a bar in Chalk Farm after that, stopped off for kebabs on the way home and randomly bumped into another good friend from school, Justin. We kidnapped him and made him stay up until 5 am, drinking with us and appreciating Chris' extreme hand gestures. He's a demonstrative type, as you can see from the photos.

Saturday...slow start, the morning was characterised by us sitting around in our pants and t-shirts, drinking tea and feeling quite rough. Something we've got plenty of experience of- we've doing it for almost 20 years now... A greasy breakfast made us a bit more human (although nowhere near enough). Then it was across London to Twickenham. Australia-England, some of the guys had tickets, some didn't. Those with went to the game, those who didn't chilled out in front of the big screen at the pub. The result, well, fair, but let's not dwell on that. Welcome back Lewis and Jonny, and wake up everyone else, just about. From there, we hit the Barmy Arms, a Twickenham institution- huge crowds of people, drunk as skunks, belting out classics from the DJ. Seriously good fun, hundreds of people singing at the tops of their voices, anything from Robbie Williams to Queen to Tom Jones. Genius. Michael bailed out but we picked up Joe (another colleague of Nick's). Then we all went to the dogs. Wimbledon dog track, with a slightly different (!!) fan base to the rugby. We were booked in at a table with a view of the track, food included. Needless to say, some betting and drinking were done. Chris did very well, the rest of us broke evenish or thereabouts. From there, someone decided it was a good idea to go to a club. We ended up in this meat market full of students and backpackers sucking each others faces off, and were very out of place. As Will pointed out, we looked like pervy old uncles at a school dance. Anyway, a few more drinks, a taxi home, more kebabs, a little port and then copious cups of tea until about three thirty. Not bad for us old folks.

Morning brought the end of the stag. Nick and Sarah (la fiancee) went to chirch to have their banns read, and then Sarah made us bacon and scrambled eggs. All in all, a brilliant weekend. Loved up with my long-not-seen mates, and blessed to have been able to spend a slightly raucus weekend with them. Bring on the wedding, should be a corker.

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