I thought I better get this post published now, otherwise any longer and the words 'last weekend' will no longer apply. Anyway...

Last weekend was my penultimate weekend spent in England's pastures green. To help me get the most out of it, I was joined by a load of my friends, most of whom I had been unable to see during my last trip to Hull the previous weekend.

On Thursday I met up with Rami after work. He had got to Lincoln earlier in the afternoon and was taking some time out to chill with his new book by Danny Wallace. I met him (Rami, not Danny Wallace) in the Walkabout pub, which is only a couple of minutes from my office and we spent some time chewing the fat. We then headed over to Yates pub for dinner, before heading back to my house for the evening. It during this evening that Rami shared with me the address of a most excellent flickr stream, which I am sure some of you will enjoy.

On the Friday I had to go back to work, so Rami spent his day exploring Lincoln. I finished at 3pm so I joined back up with Rami at the Walkabout pub. After a little while we headed over to the station to meet Nick, who was on his way to Lincoln to join us. We picked Nick up at the station and headed back to Walkabout for a hearty meal and a much needed pint, as it was unreasonably hot again. After that we went back to the station where we were joined by Ian and shortly afterwards by Ben who arrived by car. We all squeezed in to his car (much at the delight of his suspension no doubt) and headed back over to my house.

Once everyone had dumped their stuff, we then walked back into town to go get some drinks. Unfortunately, as I don't go on nights out in Lincoln, I was a decidedly rubbish tour guide when it came to where we should go for a pint. In the end I decided we should go down to the wharf as the high street pubs were packed and I am too much of an old man for hot, busy places with loud music (damned young people). We went into a nice pub down at the wharf which was quite quiet and pretty much an old man's pub, which only had young people going into it because it was right next to all the other pubs and it had no queue at the bar. It was very pleasant and the cold pints of cider were decidedly welcome in the hot, humid conditions.

After that we made our way back to the high street and went to Walkabout pub, which was very busy. We stayed in there for a couple of hours before heading off to get a takeaway and then getting a taxi back to my house. I was rather pleased to discover the location of the takeaway as I only knew the whereabouts of one other takeaway in Lincoln and it was highly suspect.

On the Saturday we generally just loafed around for the day. We were joined in the afternoon by Ed and Tom who had driven over from Hull for the evening. I had planned to do a big barbeque but, typically enough, a rather nasty storm descended from the heavens and considerably reduced our inclination to go outside. So instead we just grilled/cooked all the food and it all ended up quite well. We then all went to the pub as the rain had subsided and chilled out there for a few hours, which was cool.

After returning from the pub, Ed and Tom made their way back to Hull and the rest of us went to bed (after people had got more of their fix of JFK Reloaded – a game Rami had become obsessed with on my pc).

On Sunday, it was time for everyone to make their way back to their respective homes. The guys left at various intervals throughout the day, with Nick and Rami leaving last around mid-afternoon. I then spend the rest of my day chillin’ like a villain and copying some of my vast collection of mp3s onto my laptop – a task which has taken me most of the week’s evenings to finish.

It is now boiling down to the last few days, as those of you who have been paying attention to the countdown timer on Katakandy will have noticed. I am largely ready for it now. All I need to do is sort out some new trainers (at long last) and then sort out my train ticket down to Heathrow airport. I will probably do one more post on Monday on here and then the next post I do after that will be from Japan – how exciting.