Monday, September 03, 2012
Regent's Park
Bank holiday weekend has come and gone, and with my usual foresight, I've failed to plan a holiday. Which means another long weekend spent in good ol' London.
In the sun.
At the park.
With a book.
And ice-cold cider (7.5% - I've never had cider that strong...).
Fell asleep on the grass (blame the cider...) and promptly got up covered in a sprinkling of ... pigeon feathers. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FRIGGIN' HELL HAPPENED WHILE I WAS ASLEEP?! Did a bird crawl over me and molt? Did some bird fight happen overhead?? Did someone terrorise a bird and scatter its feathers all over me??? (!)
Whatever it is, I. Do. NOT. Want. To. Know.
Little Venice.
De-constructed birds aside, the good weather continued, so I went for a wander around Regents canal and ended up at a little riverboat cafe. The tea was thoroughly enjoyable, with lots of random old people strolling by with dogs and babies and whatnot, although I do find the entire canal being ... green... slightly disconcerting.
Green canal.
After a very lazy afternoon at the park and canal, I had the brilliant idea of destroying the peace and tranquillity of the entire weekend by attending the Notting Hill Carnival the next morning. The biggest street party in Europe, apparently, attended by over a million people this year.
Yup, that's right.
ONE MILLION people + + . Crammed into the very genteel and very by-no-means-large suburb of Notting Hill. With bongos, face paint, feathers and outrageous costumes; insanely loud and thumping music of all description; unlimited booze and semi-naked men and women shaking their wares for all they're worth.
Our party lasted all of 2 and a half hours before calling it quits and wandered off in search of a pub. For purposes of crowd control, all the nearby tube stations were conveniently closed, so we had to navigate through all of Hyde Park (and yes you all know how friggin' big it is) and endured a period of confusion in the pub-less embassy suburbia of Fitzrovia (filled with tall Georgian-imitation mansions occupied by embassies, pavements lined with trees, not a single pedestrian in sight and of course... not a single pub) before falling into a vaguely respectable establishment near Paddington train station and drowning ourselves in beer.
Good weekend all in all, but somehow I just wish I had stayed in the park.