It was great to see old friends there, and to meet so many new friends as well!

Click on the photo to enlarge.

It was a real international event, with 8 Colombians, 2 Italians and 2 Brits, all enjoying the great British beer!

I look forward to seeing everyone again at future festivals - go to the Beer Festival page to see which beer festivals are coming up for the rest of the year!

Here's the first blog post of 2012, and it's a video of grandson Ben riding his bicycle for the first time without stabilisers!

Firstly, I attended the Beer Festival at Egham United Services Club for the first time.

As luck would have it, this venue is about 100 yards from where son-in-law Phil lives.

Here is a photo of Phil and yours truly in traditional beer-festival pose.

Here are the usual suspects soaking up the atmosphere (and the ale) at Woking.

Here's Josefina and yours truly in her daughter's appartment..

He completed the walk in stages, two or three weeks at a time, over the course of the past 5 years.

Here is a photo of Gus at the end of the journey, outside the cathedral at Santiago.

Here are photos of two young men looking very smart in their respective new uniforms.

Had a nice time, and got to know all about the French health service, due to various minor ailments.

Here's a photo of Alfie in his French garden.

They piggy-back of the O2 network, so coverage is pretty good. Everything I've read about them has been fairly positive, so if you're fed up with high mobile charges from the big networks then why not give them a try?

If you order your new sim via the ad on the right, or at top of the page, then you'll get extra free credit with your first order, and so will I!

When you've received and registered your new sim you can give me a call at no cost, as calls to other giffgaff users are totally free!

Went into my local today at lunchtime and asked for a pint of Guinness instead of the usual bitter ( yes I know strictly speaking it should have been a glass of Burgundy ). Got a funny look from the barman.

Then he asked if I wanted anything to eat, and got an even funnier look when I asked for a gorgonzola sandwich.

'I can do you a cheese roll' he said...

Well this was Croydon and not Dublin.

Here are some of the usual suspects at last month's Farnham Beerex, which is the longest-running UK beer festival to be held continuously at the same venue.

In a week or two it'll be time for the Kingston Beer Festival.

Check out full details on the Beer Fest Calendar on my   Beer Festival page.

Scandal magazine Oi! seems to have come up with some interesting revelations about my father in celebration of his 80th birthday.

(Thanks to Moonpig.com for the inspiration).

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Photos of the birthday party now available online here.

I have now updated the Beer Fest page with details of those events for 2011 that I hope to attend, so click on the link in the left hand margin to see these.

As it's almost February that means Battersea Beer Festival is nearly upon us. I shall be at Battersea on the afternoon of Thursday 10th Feb (not Friday this year), so hope to see you there.

That's all I can think of at the moment, apart from saying that I couldn't resist posting this photo of Alfie dog in traditional pose up on the settee.