Leon's Hat Party

Posted on 2007/05/27 18:11:31 (May 2007).

[Saturday 26th May]
Leon had a bit of a birthday do today - it was his 30th in fact. He had deemed it was going to be a hat party, and all attendees must arrive wearing suitable headgear.

As always with this sort of thing, Chie and I left it until absolutely the last minute to get our hats. After a bit of research on the web I came across Bates Hats - a Gentleman's Hatter near Piccadilly. This was a suprisingly fun experience - it's a lovely old shop and they had, unsurprisingly, quite a lot of hats there. I settled on a tweed cap, and have to say I am rather enamoured with it.

Anyway, after buying our hats, we hopped on a train and headed down to Canterbury. As a small aside, I took my GPS receiver with me, and to my delight it actually was able to get a signal on the train itself. So if you're really interested, you can click here to see the routed plotted with good old Google Maps. OK I know this in itself is pretty pointless, but the technology underlying all of that is pretty amazing - to me at least.

We got to the pub - the Dolphin in Canterbury - around 3 o' clock, and settld ourselves in for an afternoon of drinking, chatting, and of course the inevitable swapping of hats. There also seemed to be something of an oubreak of board games. The old pub staple Jenga, and a "guess what this thing is" game called Articulate. Usually I'm a little wary of this sort of thing, but I suppose it was actually quite fun.

The food at the Dolphin was very good too - Chie and I tried their vegetarian burgers, which were of the Quorn variety, which to be honest I far prefer over the other types you often get (either something overtly beany, or those strange things made of what appears to be the kind of chopped mixed veg you can buy in tins - eugh). Oh and they came with brie and mushrooms - very tasty.

As it was largely a daytime event, we decided not to stay the night in Canterbury, and so we headed off some time before 10 to get the train back to London.

It was an odd sort of a party, but a fun one nonetheless.

The melon hat suits you. It matches your... your... well, your face !

Posted by Sheri at 2007/05/29 13:34:29.

Mon petit fils n'a pas une visage comme melon!

Posted by John's Mum at 2007/05/29 20:43:08.

;-)

Posted by Sheri at 2007/05/29 21:24:48.

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