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...

In March, while we were back home in Australia, we spent an afternoon with Mum, planning our trip around Spain and Portugal. Of course, we all had cities that were already on our personal agendas. Barcelona, Madrid, Cordoba, Granada, Seville were all instantly placed on the itinerary. To plan the rest of the route, we skimmed the guidebooks and looked at the places in between the must-dos. That's how Évora made the cut.

Below is the paragraph that tempted us to Évora:

"What draws the crowds though is the Capela dos Ossos, a mesmerising memento mori (reminder of death). A small room behind the altar has walls and columns lined with the bones and skulls of some 5000 people. ... There's a black humour to the way the bones and skulls have been carefully arranged in patterns, and the whole effect is strangely beautiful."

Chapel decorated with Bones! Gross!

The chapel was definitely an eerie place. Bones cover the walls and thousands of skulls feature in the decorating. This means a lot of empty eye sockets are staring at you as you walk through.

The monks who created the church thought that the chapel would be an ideal place to think about the fleeting nature of life and to help one reduce the focus on material possessions. Death is certainly something that is on your mind in a room full of bones. This message is emphasised by the greeting that welcomes you to the chapel... "We bones in here wait for yours to join us."



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'm not sure which city started the Christmas market trend, but Vienna's have been the best so far. In Vienna, there were many stalls and lots of beautiful items on sale. Unfortunately, Prague didn't cut it; there was mainly junk on sale.

The most interesting items at the markets were the Christmas food and drink treats.

• Trdelnik -- a sugary donut type item which was cooked by wrapping the dough around a wooden spit and spinning over an open fire. At the main market there were six stalls selling trdelnik. Each of stall had a line about 20 people long. Obviously a very popular item at Christmas time. Makes sense, because they were yummo.
  
  
• Grog -- on our first evening we were intrigued by a menu entry which read "Grog". In Australia, grog is just another word for alcohol. We had to give it a go. Unfortunately, we discovered that grog is a disgusting concoction consisting of rum and hot water. Only Andrew was able to finish his cup of Grog (he loves a challenge!).
  
  
• Czech Spa Wafers -- They are delicious! A very thin wafer sandwich with a sugary filling. They are delightful toasted or heated in the microwave for a couple of seconds.