Notting Hill Carnival

Having never been to the Notting Hill Carnival before, I decided it was high time I went along to see this (apparently) world-renowned celebration of Caribbean culture happening almost on my doorstep. Accordingly a friend and I caught the tube into London on Sunday, dropped our overnight bags off at the Whiteleaf Hotel in Bayswater and walked along to Notting Hill. We arrived early. The crowd control measures were already in place with metal barriers lining some of the route the carnival procession would take, and well-policed 'sterile zones' at the junctions.

This is one of the 'sterile zones'.
In the background you can see barbecue smoke

All around the route were vendors barbecueing Jerk Chicken, corn cobs, etc, smoke rising into the Sunday morning air. The weather was behaving; reasonably mellow - a few spits and spots of rain and occasional gusts of wind, but mostly harmless.

Some guys enjoying the procession from their balcony, the guy in the white t-shirt dancing like a Thunderbird puppet!

There were some highly creative costumes - very colourful and elaborate - I've put some more photos on my homepage. Email me if you'd like the link.

After watching the carnival procession, we caught the tube to Leicester Square and watched The Last Airbender in 3D. I thoroughly enjoyed the film - it had some interesting, complex characters, fantastic effects in 3D, amazing performances and I liked the story. Very much looking forward to the sequel!

After a meal in Yates (one of our favourite eating places in London), we walked back to the Hotel. We'd booked in advance thinking that with it being Bank Holiday weekend and the Notting Hill Carnival, rooms would be hard to find. In fact it looked like there were plenty of vacancies, and lower prices than the online rates. Oh well, can't win 'em all. Earlier in the year I spent a long weekend in Norfolk, and my room there was at the top of the three-storey Guest House, with several narrow staircases and corridors to get there. Same story at the Whiteleaf Hotel, with a tortuous route all through the building and up countless flights of stairs. Despite the many sessions I spend at the gym, my heart was beating pretty fast by the time I was able to put my key in the door and let myself in. When you look at the outside of the buildings in Inverness Terrace, you get the idea that once upon a time, it was a wealthy area. I like the architecture. It's a little sad that the once-gracious proportions of the rooms at the Whiteleaf Hotel are now lost as they've been divided into such small units.

It was reasonably clean but offering none of the refinements (no fridge in the room, no complimentary shampoo/shower gel), and although breakfast was included, all that was on offer was cornflakes and toast. Overall I guess it was cheap enough but I can't recommend it.

Sew creative!

Today I'm feeling inordinately pleased with myself on two counts :

1. I began the day with a trip to the gym - always a good way to start the week (not least because of the extra calories I've indulged in over the weekend).


2. At the weekend I noticed that the plastic peg basket was broken. I also noticed when we were playing Scrabble there was a hole in the letters' bag. This morning I got the sewing machine out and made myself a new letters' bag out of a scrap of green fabric I happened to have lying around, then went on to make a new peg bag from part of an old curtain.

I may have mentioned before that I detested sewing lessons at school, probably because I felt so inept at it. That might go some way to explain why I'm feeling so pleased with my new-found ability to create useful things from material.

Some work, some play

Had a lovely weekend - Vicky came to visit. Saturday afternoon we went to see the exhibitions on at The Light Box in Woking - 'Escape to Wonderland', a history of children's book illustration, and Lord Snowdon's photographs of artists. Back home we played a game of Scrabble, the first I've played in a long time. It was my mother's favourite game - she played daily with my aunt, and I imagined them watching over our shoulders as we played, whispering tips in our ears.

Dave and Vic had been working hard on the construction of Dave's garden room, so we invited them over in the evening to share a home-made curry with all the trimmings, followed by games of Dominoes and a card game Vicky taught us called, charmingly, 'sh-t-head'. Dave spotted the Scrabble box and commented that there's been a change of rules which has hit the headlines in a major way - apparently you can now use real names. I confess the news had escaped my notice and I can't really understand why the change anyway. Oh well, time moves on.

Sunday Vicky and I went to see 'Step Up' in 3D. There are some amazingly talented dancers out there these days - some of those moves are just mind-boggling - how do their bodies do that?!? Incredible strength and flexibility, I guess.

Ebay Success!

A post-script to the story of the stool make-over: I listed for sale on ebay the yellow patterned leatherette fabric that came off the seat pad, with the suggestion it could be used as a kitchen floor-covering in a dolls' house. Amazingly there were 6 'watchers' including a lady in Australia who wrote to ask if I'd be prepared to post it overseas. Unfortunately I had restricted the sale to UK bidders only, and wasn't able to amend that aspect, so I had to disappoint her. Nonetheless, the fabric sold for £2.64!

Stool Makeover

So here it is, the finished job. What you can't see from the photo is the little mistake I made. To remove the seat pad I had to unscrew 6 screws, which I carefully preserved ready to screw it back once it was re-covered. As my staple gun was one of the tools I lost when the allotment shed was burned down by vandals back in December last year, I nipped over to Dave's to borrow his. Only problem was his staples were far too long, so I zipped up to AHC Tools to buy some shorter ones. Whilst I was in the shop, we could see lots of police motorcycle activity outside and one of the shopkeepers explained today is 'Passing Out' day at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy.

Clutching the staple gun and new staples, I exited the shop and went to my car. Where I was parked, I could see a cavalcade of police motorcycles behind me and another one up ahead. It wasn't immediately obvious what I should do ... should I wait in the parked car or use the opportunity of the traffic being stopped to make my getaway ... I chose the getaway and pulled out from the layby. Immediately a policeman zoomed up and motioned me to stop, and then a motorcade of black limousines sped by us towards the Academy. Silly me was so busy watching the policeman, I didn't even think about peering into the limousines to see who was passing by.

Talking of 'passing', I'm told that the 'Passing Out' parade is aptly named, as sometimes one or two will pass out during the course of the day.

Anyway, back to the little mistake ... by the time I got back to Dave's and he helped me staple the new fabric to the wooden base of the seat pad, I'd forgotten to make sure that the screw holes were accessible. Oh well, it seems quite firmly wedged in place, perhaps it won't matter it's not screwed down.

Whilst I was at Dave's, I took the opportunity to photograph the latest stage in the Garden Room construction. It's coming on well, isn't it! Work is going on pause for a few days whilst he enjoys a short break in the South of France. I've agreed to take care of his Senegal parrot whilst he's away.

"To infinity ... and beyond!"

Yes, folks, I went to see the latest Toy Story in 3D. A friend said it was recommended to him and a little reluctantly I agreed to go along. We went to a showing at 8.25 pm - which seemed a little late to me for what I thought of as a 'kid's film' - but with an audience aged late teens right through to senior citizens, I didn't feel at all out of place. It was brilliant! I thoroughly enjoyed it and can now understand why adults are recommending it to other adults.

The Wine-Making Continues

Decided today was the day to decant the blackcurrant wine-in-the-making from the bucket to the demi-johns. The funnel I have is quite small. I draped the clean jam muslin over the funnel to strain off any solid matter, with the result that it took a long time to pour the wine into the two demi-johns. I started the job outside, guessing it might be a messy process, and realised it was attracting wasps and flies so I brought everything indoors. I was glad I'd stood the bell jars on trays - as you can see from the photos, a fair amount of wine ended up in the trays. As I looked around at the mess, it reminded me of something that happened a number of years ago: one day I had had a couple of failures in things I'd tried to do, and was making something in the kitchen and even that went wrong. I was starting to sink into self-pity mode, thinking to myself , "I'm no good at ANYTHING", when the little voice in my head offered: "You're very good at making a mess in the kitchen!" - which was absolutely true, I'd got almost every utensil and pan I own dirty and there was a mess over every worktop. I burst out laughing and it banished the self-pity almost before I'd owned it.

One of the things that amazes me is how the jam muslin comes up nice and clean again when you boil it up with some Persil then let it go cold and rinse thoroughly.

Stool Make-Over

Here's the stool after a couple of coats of paint. Now I'm looking on ebay to see if I can find some reasonably priced leatherette to re-upholster it. There used to be a stall at Farnborough market selling material but it wasn't there when I visited yesterday. There weren't many stalls there at all and I don't know whether that's because it's holiday season or whether the market has generally diminished.

Domestic Goddess?

A number of years ago I bought this tired kitchen stool at a jumble sale, intending to paint it and give it a new lease of life. Two house moves and 25 years later and finally its time has come! I've bought some claret paint to match the decor in the kitchen and given it a first coat (not shown). I want to find some leatherette or something suitable to re-cover the seat pad.

I also got the sewing machine out and had a go at turning a long-sleeved shirt into a short-sleeved shirt. I wasn't satisfied with the result, despite taking an hour trying to achieve perfection. All good practice, though.

On another note, a friend and I are each going to research 5 potential holidays then choose the one we like best for later in the year. Now where in the world do I want to go?