Every year, the Notting Hill Carnival is held on the August bank holiday weekend. It is a Caribbean flavoured festival and is the second biggest street festival in the world (after Rio). The parade route goes right past our front door and we had a fantastic view from our living room window.

Well, we had a fantastic view once we arrived home. We tried to cram it in all in to our bank holiday weekend. We organised a last minute a trip to Scotland (the purposes of which were not entirely recreational... more to come) and when booking our flights home we decided to try and catch the tail end of carnival Monday.

Getting home mid-carnival was a bit of a challenge. Ladbroke Grove, our closest tube station was closed and thousands of people were using Notting Hill Gate tube station. We decided to tube it to Holland Park, which is a little further afield and hoof it. Walking down the hill from Holland Park to our house we had a fantastic view of the carnival in full swing. All you could see was a sea of people bobbing up and down to a Caribbean beat.

This view was a little stressing to us as we knew we had to wade through that crowd to get home. Poor Andrew was dragging our rollie luggage which was not an easy feat. We got a few strange looks and I'm sure most people were wondering what kind of idiot brings luggage to a street party. Eventually we made it to our front door, stepped over the pile of rubbish that had accumulated on our door step and retreated to sanity.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out our window watching the parade go by and bopping to the music. Parade is a very loose term as there wasn't a steady stream of floats. There also weren't any barriers preventing the crowd from getting up close and personal. Floats would go by every now and then with a mobile crowd attached. It seemed that carnival goers would pick a float they liked and follow the parade route with the float.


Sea of people is the right metaphor to describe the crowd, as there were definitely waves of people. Sometimes we wouldn't be able to see the road outside because of the number of people and sometimes there'd only be 50 or so revellers outside. I think it was a great way to do the parade. It gave people an escape route from the madness. I don't think the Grove's narrow streets would deal with a traditional parade.


Seven o'clock arrived, the official finishing time, and floats were still going by our house. An hour later, floats were still going past and a line down the road showed that there were several more to come. I think they were doing laps of the route. Sadly, at around 9:30pm, the happy, dancing crowd turned in to an angry, bottle-throwing mob. A group of young boys started throwing bottles at the police and all hell broke loose. It was a sad end to a really fun day.

The police response was aggressive. Large groups of police officers raced up our street and formed human barriers. They created several lines across Ladbroke Grove, some lines pushed the crowd north and others pushed the crowd south. Effectively, they squeezed the crowd out of Notting Hill. There were hundreds of police officers dressed in fluorescent yellow parkas outside our house.


Andrew and I watched the police operation from our window while we ate our dinner. It was dinner and a show! A group of kids loitered around 40m away from the police line. Every now and again a boy would dart out from the safety of the group and pelt a bottle at the police line. The police weren't wearing any protective clothing apart from parkas and bobby hats. I'm surprised that more of them weren't injured by flying glass. (The papers say that only one officer was injured.)


We watched until stray missiles started to crash on our window ledge. We then drew our blinds and turned off our living room lights. Every now and again I'd peek out to see what was going on. I saw the arrival of the riot police but not the action. At around 11:30pm, Andrew and I went to bed to the sounds of helicopters and police sirens. Luckily, our sound-proofing is quite good so it was no more than a distant buzz.

This morning I woke up expecting to see the after-math and was greeted with clean streets. Gone was the carpet of rubbish and all the shattered glass. Shops that had wisely boarded up their windows for the carnival had taken down the coverings and were now open for business. The organisers/council had done a very impressive job on the clean up.

More photos on Flickr...

Maybe I'm not too far off the mark with the whole "Jess is 12!" declaration. Especially if you look at some of the presents I received this year for my birthday.

Stormtrooper Mighty Mugg



Sakura Momiji Doll



Wolverine Mighty Mugg



To balance out all these toys I gifted myself with a beautiful new handbag. It's an Ollie and Nic Dolci chocolate tote. I love it! It has that beautiful new bag smell and it's huge (it fits 2 books!). It was on sale and I couldn't resist.

Ollie&Nic bag

I marked a few firsts on my birthday this year. It was my first birthday in London and also my first-ever summer birthday. I think it's probably also my first ever low-key birthday.

I'm a big one for parties and usually have something elaborate planned to celebrate. Car Rallies, Trivia Nights, and Fancy Dress Parties have all featured in my birthday past.

This year my birthday fell by the wayside when I suddenly found myself in employment. Not only did I find a contract but it was one where I actually had to work! The first 2 weeks of my contract passed in a blur. I worked hard all day and then often worked late into the evening. Before I knew it, it was the weekend of my birthday and nothing had been planned.

House husband to the rescue! Andrew quickly whipped up a lovely weekend away in Brighton to celebrate my birthday. We caught the train down on Saturday morning, spent a lovely couple of days relaxing by the seaside then trained it back to London on Sunday evening. Natalie also organised dinner and cocktails on Friday (888) for my birthday.

It was nice to have other people organising my birthday events for a change. Certainly different from how it usually happens (mainly because I love organising stuff too much to let other people do it!)

Andrew has been telling me for years that you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday after you turn eleven. Maybe I've finally reached that milestone. Jess is 12!



(Not if Andrew has anything to say about it. On my birthday weekend away, he continually reminded me that this birthday was also my first 30-something birthday. Not sure why he takes such delight in this fun fact. He's celebrated a few more 30-something birthdays than I have.)

I must apologise for the lack of activity around here. Believe or not, the silence is due to the fact that I am no longer an unemployed bum. That's right! I have a job!

It all happened very quickly. Last Thursday, I got a call from a recruiter asking if I could do an interview in the afternoon. That afternoon, I went to the interview and dazzled them with my brilliance. Actually, they checked that I didn't have two heads, asked if I could write a user guide in a week, and then asked if I could start the next day. Tick! Tick! Tick! The job was mine.

I actually did start the next day. My first day at a new role was a Friday. It was kind of strange. I've been working hard all week and it looks like I will finish the user guide by the end of this week. They thought I was being cocky when I said I could do it. I showed them! (And it will look great on my resume.)

I'm enjoying the work and the environment so here's hoping my initial contract of only 2 weeks gets extended. It does help that my desk has a view of the Thames and the London Eye (so pretty!). Makes having to go to work each day that much easier to bear.




A photo from more relaxing times...

P.S. Happy Birthday Leah!

Battersea Power Station is one of London's iconic buildings. Perhaps not as famous as The Tower or the Houses of Parliament, but anyone living in London knows it and loves it (well I do!).

The power station has not been in use for quite a while; it ceased operation in 1983. A prime piece of real estate, right by the Thames, can not lay unused forever. The site is currently slated for development. With such an iconic building, of course the public is going to be wary of any real estate development. The construction company decided to have a few open days to show the public their plans for the site... to get them on side before they start knocking stuff down.

Andrew and I were lucky to hear about the open days and headed out to the very last one. We viewed the plans for the site with some interest but it was mainly just fluff. Too many current buzz words for my liking. Carbon zero, recycling, grey water, river transport, eco chimney(!!)... blah blah blah. (It would be nice to think they really meant it, but they are totally just cashing in on the latest fad.)

Our real interest was in the deteriorating power station. Such an interesting building, in an interesting condition. We were lucky to visit on a beautiful summer's day and the red brick building and tall white chimneys contrasted beautifully against a brilliant blue sky. It was a photographer's paradise. And we were out in force... from mobile phone cameras to DSLRs, I'm sure the power station was captured from every angle. (I have never seen so many DSLRs in one place). Let's hope the developers don't ruin it.




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