Life in London - Notting Hill Carnival

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The Notting Hill Carnival was massive. Everyone we spoke to in the lead up told us that it would be. Given that it fell over a long weekend, we had previously thought about heading away somewhere. But after being repeatedly told how amazing it is, and given that it was going to be literally passing by our front door, we thought it was worth hanging around for.

Despite how much it had been talked up, we really didn’t quite know what to expect. Sitting behind Rio as the second biggest street carnival in the world, we were excited – and perhaps if we’re honest, even a little nervous – to find out.

This mixed anticipation was reinforced when strolling down Portabello Road on the Saturday evening before things kicked off on the Sunday. All the shops were boarding up their windows in preparation, creating a distinctly eerie atmosphere. It felt like the calm before a storm – like Notthing Hill was collectively bunkering down in anticipation.

Well, having now survived the epic two days of the Carnival, we can now sit here and safely say that it exceeded our wildest expectations. The shopkeepers were wise to board up their windows, as over 1 million people flowed into Notting Hill over the two days. We thought that the Carnival might be confined to a couple of streets, with a few pubs having some music on, but we were so so wrong.

We are not exaggerating by saying that entire suburb exploded into a giant, chaotic mix of a parade, pop-up bars lining every street, countless street food vendors selling the classically Jamaican ‘Jerk’ chicken and curried goat, and massive soundsystems pumping out ear-splitting reggae and dub step on literally every street corner literally turning the streets into an open-air dance floor.

While our heads were pounding after two days of Carnival mayhem, we were quite glad to be living right in the middle of it all. The big advantage was not having to join the hoards in queuing for the all-too-infrequent public toilets, which as I’m sure you can imagine, were not in the greatest state after two days of abuse at the hands of a million drunkards and curry-eaters.

With that said, we did resist the temptation of making a small profit by opening our own loo for a fee…unlike many of our neighbours!