I had a meeting with a potential sponsor for Shed Week 2011, and they and their PR company treated us both to a great lunch in cote bistro in Soho – good food and a couple of bottles of Kasteel Cru, a French Lager I have not had before and it’s was a pleasant surprise and I have since found out you can get it in Asda.

The food was good simple French style – Scallops with lardons and Steak & Frites with Crème brûlée to follow, yes predictable but its what I fancied!

Anyway they also put us up for the night in a hotel near convent garden and got us tickets for a show, Hair……

with the broadway cast – not sure if that matters but it was a jolly romp of sex,drugs and hair but not as much as I would have thought giving the title.

Another new experience was on our return to Wales, we went off for a SPA day (not SPAR) which I bought for MrsUW birthday swimming, sauna, spa you know the sort of thing. – I know Iam going all sheddiesexual – and I had a Mud steam combi thing, Rasul Mud experience

This traditional Arabian inspired cleansing ritual combines the health enhancing properties of heat, steam and mud for a totally relaxing and skin conditioning treatment in a magical and sensory private environment with twinkling lights and aromatic vapours, whilst jets of steam keep the air warm and moist. Finally, a gentle tropical rain shower washes the mud away.

We got it very cheap from the groupon/myCitydeal Cardiff page – a bargin 60% off.

A great time was had by all.

Some great food and drink to be had, we managed a glass of one of the new Neath brewery ales – Green Bullet which was a 6% IPA that was very drinkable on a hot day.

Otley were there in force again this year & I really enjoyed their new O7 Weissen style beer, was lucky to have half on the saturday, as it had sold out by the my return on the Sunday..

The other beer I had from the Ponty brwer was the O5 which I have not had before, but seen it all over the shop and the O-garden went down well with my better half, hopefully they will have more of the Weissen at their Golden Ale festival this weekend.

I also had a taste of new brewers Untapped and their lovely Eclipse which I may get a few bottles in to add to my Dark collection.

Also had some tasters of the excellent Gwatkin Cider (and bought a bottle of Norman to take home) but not sure about their bar staff anyway ArfurD has a more in depth review of the beer and brewers that were in attendance.

of course the day was not just about Drinking (boo) but we had plenty of free samples of food and managed to spend a bomb on things such as a Wensleydale & cranberry Scotch Eggs

Cockles from penclawdd and other seafood

some great value Venison sausages and the best pastry on any pie I have had in a long time and two massive cakes.

The atmosphere was great and of course this was helped by the brilliant weather, some great music (which I can’t remember what they were called)

So I set up my tripod this afternoon in the new Bar area of the house, ok it’s the converted garage but I have manged to use a corner to store my beer.

As brewdog was on top of my beer rack then they were the ones in focus…

This was the shot I finally choose after taking about 30!

Some of the other ones that I don’t think made the grade.

OK Iam still not up to the half the quality of Rob, but he does have a better camera & glass then me

In my day job I sometimes get asked to pose for photos (no not like that), I think it’s because I sit next to the picture desk and if they need someone with ladies wrists or a sock model then they turn to me.

But today I was asked by Andrew James to break a bottle with a brick and attack him as if I was a drunken nutter in Cardiff on a Weekend (no sniggering), who says regional Newspapers are not true to life!.

Two things wrong with these pictures

1) I would never drink budweiser
2) I am a pacifist (coward)

Who says the camera never lies.

Anyway you can see more of Andy’s shots over at his blog and his shots of Kate humble are worth a look.