The perfect pub garden?

I miss the UK style pub gardens, and our new house gave us the opportunity to recreate one overlaid with our own themes. So last weekend we had a small gathering, luckily on the only dry day of the long weekend. Come Sunday afternoon the seating was prepared

The bar & beer pump was ready to go, pulling a homebrewed English-style session ale

and the tables were laid with bike books, magazines and the odd 'wierd tales' publication

The doily looks very delicate, but underneath it was a bowl of beer-candied bacon. It didn't that it was that good, but it was fun to greet people with 'hello, thanks for coming - want some bacon?'

The hand pump (thanks Clinton) was a winner

 and as the afternoon progressed the toys came out

before it was time for a snacks - slow cooked smoked ribs

As evening fell it was time to pull out the firetoys - there are a few videos around but I can't embed them, hopefully this will work as a link though. Thanks to Fly for editing out the bits where I drop stuff or burn myself...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaeKfNkK95o

Thanks to all for coming, it was a truly fun afternoon and I had a ball. Liz lost me during the clean-up, and later found me asleep in the hammock clutching a half eaten chicken leg and smiling to myself. Time to start planning the next one...