Celebrating Invasion Day in London

If we ever needed an excuse to drink over here in London, Australia Day is THE excuse! It was time to throw on our thermal, jacket and scarf and join all of the Australians over here who teamed up for an afternoon/evening to drink as much Australian beer that could be stomached! Well before they ran out of the stuff anyway. The Peoples Republic in our local Clapham was the bar of choice on this typical cold grey day, far from the blistering heat that is taking place back home. It was close, was replaying the Hottest 100 in full and wasn't a Walkabout which I have heard many a bogan visit on a regularly basis. We arrived around 1:30pm and it didn't take long for the festivities to get in to full swing (or Mana to finish her first beer for that matter!). With the Hottest 100 cranking over the sound system and the heaters turned on, it was as close to home as we were going to get. The bar even put on 'Aussie Tucker' which consisted typically of sausage rolls, meat pies and a toasted cheese and Vegemite sandwich that used marmite - very un-Australian, our friend Mark was none too pleased about it! We didn't really understand why as you can get Vegemite for 2 pounds here at your local Tesco, which is about the only Aussie food you can get over here that's cheap. Oh that and Fosters which I'm still yet to drink. My beer of choice was James Boags until they swiftly ran out of it, then it was on to a Western Australian beer that I had never heard of called Little Creatures which wasn't a bad drop at all. By about 8:30pm the whole place was filled with green & gold of all kinds from t-shirts and rugby jerseys to clown wigs and scarves, with the odd Australian flag cape running around. We hit the road later on (thankfully not literally) and ventured towards Tesco where the beer was much cheaper and wondered back home for another brew. There are plenty of photos of our day which captured the awesome time we had, with a few on my smugmug and heaps on Romana's Smugmug too. So go check-check-check 'em out! Hope everyone back home managed to stay cool, had a steak for all of us over here stuck with mad cow and most of all - had fun! Take it easy guys! Gav.