Nostalgia at Notting Hill 2013

Now then Debs, it's a Tale of Two Carnivals.

Number One: London













Rhiannon and I spend the morning poring over the notes of Teaser and Under the Sea, trying to convert them to Foxwood songsheet style. Then it's over to Tooting Broadway, soprano pans over shoulder, get off at Latimer Road and magically find Maxella's just in time to get our pinkness of shirts, and join Nostalgia. Then, in Cambridge Gardens . . .


OMG! It's Garvin and Anne-Marie, covered in J'ouvert mud! Old old [not as in "old"] friends from Carnival days over a decade ago.

This excellent and surprise third meeting [Kathy from Cellofest, Ann from Leeds, and now these two, and their two children, well grown-up now children] sets me up for the day. Now here's Hazel and Lionel and Kwame and Kimani who I didn't see yesterday. David and wife doing the ginger beer and sandwiches again. The pace is slow, bordering on backwards. The weather is great; the atmosphere great; the fuel for the generator for the speakers has maybe run out; someone  sorts it.


















There's some good early dirty dancing. Raul and Adrianna get on down as well. Evange is still showing some notes to the Dutch. Nice to see the colour-coded notes in a Dutch pan.




Nice to see Roger and Scraperman again. Then at 4pm Rhiannon and I have to cut and run, well, stagger through the crowds, walk to Bayswater, the nearest open tube station.




[Since you asked, Debs, about the pulled muscle, it held up thanks largely to Rhiannon carrying my travel bag as well as her own pan.]





Met some more revellers on the tube, took a photo [see below]. London is such a great party.

Then back in Leeds to contemplate the following day's flash mob . . . . and the second carnival in the tale.