Well, OK, if you haven’t figured, you’re supposed to read the title of this with a Welsh accent - because as we found out, when in Rome do what the Romans do, and when in Cardiff take an Umbrella.

A couple of weeks back Jim was due to go to Cardiff for his friend Kate’s 21st, well, actually, her second 21st. Not content with just celebrating her birthday once in the South of France over the summer, it seemed that she wanted yet another drinking session - and who were we to complain. Rich and Lucy let it slip they quite fancied visiting Cardiff for a night out and so after a couple of phone calls it was all arranged…

Saturday came and in the early hours of the morning Jim was to be found driving over the Severn Bridge rather fast, and also pondering why you have to pay to get in to Wales but it’s free to get out. Rich meanwhile was doing something involving a fish in Waitrose which meant he’d be pondering the same question when he drove over the bridge later on that evening.

Fast forward through all the unimportant odds and sods to around 8.30pm, when Rich and Lucy finally arrived in the epicentre of Welshness that is Cardiff where the rest of the gang were already on the merry way. First stop was 33 Windsor Place, a rather funky looking pub just down the road where we discovered a local cider that tasted pretty much like blue cheese and Jim had a Bloody Mary served in a vastly oversized glass. Time was marching on, and so did we (that’s Jim, Rich, Lucy, Alex, Alex, Steff, Kate, Rach, Rohan, Fi, Tash and Nerys for the record)… down to St Mary’s street and a club called ‘The Square’ where it can best be described as a huuuuuge venue for Cheesy music which got everyone (even Jim) strutting their stuff on the dance floor. Eventually though, time came to leave and after saying goodbyes we began the long wander home, where much to our surprise at 1am there was an actual Burger King open doing the post night out munchies - though, let’s face it, they’ve still got some way to go before they catch up with chips/cheese/beans from Charcoal Grill on Albert Road.

As the sun rose on Sunday, so did the general water level around Cardiff, it would be fair to say it was absolutely bucketing it down and some of the main roads were flooding. After being caught in all of this following our stroll through the City Centre we resorted to buying umbrellas before packing up the cars and enduring a 4 hour drive back to Portsmouth in some absolutely crap weather and passing out.

A big shout goes out to the Cardiff lot, we’ll be back, though if you could do something about the weather, that would be splendid

***See the photos by clicking here***

The LowerFlat went to Wales. It rained. A lot. We drank. A lot.
… and we’ll tell you about it all later after we’ve slept. A lot.

It’s not every day you have a Kent-famous celebrity in the house, well, that’s not strictly true, we do usually have 3 in residence, but anyway, that’s not the point. Ladies and Gents, Mr Joeseph Showler came down to visit us, and this is the story of the carnage he caused…

Monday started out like any other day with people going to work, people going to Uni (so rumour has it), but sometime around lunchtime it all started to go downhill when Joey and Lucy decided to start drinking at the Goose, which, being quite cheap also meant that by the time Rich and Jim arrived sometime around 5.30 (missing Neighbours) they were quite far gone.

Things went from bad to worse after a few more drinks were consumed before deciding to move on to a nearby Thai restaurant. On the way, we picked up some booze as it’s a BYO kind of place, and somehow we also got a Shi’sha pipe, but more on that later… The restaurant was rather splendid (or so it seemed under the influence) although Jim re-discovered just how hot green curries are when he mistook some green chillis for being green beans. Ouch. Thankfully Rich and Joey were on hand to pour some wine down his neck to cool the burning throat.

Next stop on the local tour was Lucy’s house (alas, Lucy moved out of the LowerFlat over a dispute surrounding how smelly our feet were). Catherine was recruited on our plan to do some drinking along with a whistle which Rich kept closely guarded for the rest of the evening.

Once we were back home Mr Gubbins made a rare public appearance and joined us for some beers whilst we got ourselves looking semi-respectable. Taxi’s were called to take us to Gunwharf where we met Mark and Lee and headed on around to Bar Risa - well, at £1.50 a pint we’d have been bloody silly not to…. AND THAT’S WHERE IT ALL BECOMES A BIT OF A BLUR… not feeling the atmosphere we moved on to a rammed Tiger Tiger where the rest of the evening descended into complete and utter oblivion.

The thing is, because of this lack of memory, let’s face it, there’s going to have to be a repeat performance sometime soon…

Oh yes.