We arrived into brilliant sunshine, though it was a bit cold. We tubed it back into London proper, and after a couple of false starts got into Steve's lovely new house in Balham! The original idea was to sleep, though we were all too excited and so after two cups of tea it was into town. We got Rich and Russ booked on a 2 day trip to Paris and then went and got food at Pizza Express - one of my favourite old haunts. Then - let the games begin! To Barcode where we were joined by Scally, Jonathan and Mark - with regular updates from Steve as to his exact whereabouts. We detoured across to The Yard and then to Comptons, where things started to hot up a bit. Steve joined us, as did Jason (the Vauxhall landlord) and we had some fun with Neil (the Compton's landlord). Back to Barcode and suddenly the gang's all there. Danny, Darryl, Steve and Audrey, Tom and Jake, Stuart, Andrew... much more like it. So of course we got caught up in the hype and decided to go to Sleaze at Crash. Fun. Lots of sexy men and good music. Busy too. Of course once started, we couldn't stop and soon we were at a new venue for Orange (just the other side of Vauxhall Bridge from Crash and the Tavern). It was us three and Darryl though we bumped into a couple more people too. Everything was flowing just fine, and again the music was great. As if by magic it was suddenly about 8.45am - er how did that happen? (As if we didn't know!). We left somewhat disorientated and landed on the war zone that is currently Vauxhall Bridge roundabout. Ever tried negotiating a major London roundabout whilst completely minkered? No? I don't recommend it. Finally, having circumnavigated it almost fully once we hit the tube and slowly returned to Balham. Russ wasn't feeling too well by the time we hit home and so we put them to bed pretty immediately after a cuppa. I had a bit more of a catch up with Steve and also finally hit the sack...

Saturday later: we woke around 7pm, and we were meant to be at Scally's for his Burn's Night party at 7.30pm! Oops. We gathered our thoughts and bit and as if by magic Richie had joined us too. Great to see him. So, off we toddled to Brixton in a lovely cab ready for David's party. And what a fun night it was! Scally had kind of lined up a blind-ish date for me - Martin. How sexy??? Sadly he wasn't interested in that way (bugger) but we did bond over me cutting his shirtsleeves off. (Don't ask!). David served up lashings of haggis, neeps and tatties and me, Rich, Russ and Richie worked our way through 1.125L of 50% proof Smirnoff. And not slowly either! I ended up snogging the 50 year old very sexy Daddy dressed in police uniform. Er yes. It was a Burn's Night party, so not sure how that outfit worked, but I wasn't complaining! Anyway, soon it was time to mosey and so we hit Crash again - this time for the normal Saturday night. It was great. Lots of people there too - Steve, Big Steve, Jason, David Ogle (oh no, that was last night!) oh I can't remember! Anyway - more great music (why is it seemingly soooo much better than in Sydney) and more sexy men to snog and dance with. Of course we were now on a roll and so went again to the same new venue as the night before - though on a Sunday morning it's called Beyond. And it's incredibly busy. And just fantastic. We bumped into Mark (Gizmo) initially, and then all of Nick's crowd - Chris, Colin, Kay and Tara - and boy did we have a blast. Richie was the most minkered I've ever seen him and we just had a blast. Finally we had to leave coz of a security alert some time around 11am Sunday. Probably just as well as we had no intention of leaving! Back to Steve's for cups of tea and we decided it wasn't worth sleeping. Onto the Vauxhall around 4.15pm and there we waited, vodka and red bull in hand for the gang to arrive. And oh how they did! By the time Dame Edna graced us with her presence on stage there were a million of the old gang there. Just fantastic to see everyone again. Rob, Wayne, Tim Red Shoes, Ian, Baby Tom and a few more we hadn't already seen I'm sure. The boys had a blast - the music was again fantastic and the crowd as up for it as ever. The boys were whisked away to the LA3 (la Trois sweetie) by Chris at around 10.30am though I hung around with Steve until about 11.30pm. Down to Old Street and off we went again. Upstairs funky, downstairs more electronic but either way fun. We'd had enough around 3.30am (we hadn't slept remember!) and so we finally made a move. It was mild and so we decided to walk the streets from the city back into Soho to get a coffee but most places shut. We ended up on Waterloo Bridge around 5.15am just looking at London in the dark - fantastic. To Waterloo station for coffee and panini and then back to Steve's for about 6.30am. Sleeeeeeep. At least for a wee while. Up around midday - Steve was working from home so we had brekky and chatted a bit and then hit London town again for the boys to pick up their Paris tickets and for me to get my train tickets. That done they hit Jon and Mark's and I went back to Steve's for some dinner and an early night (after Cornonation Street!) What a weekend!!!!