Notting Hill Carnival Aftermath

Piles of dull steel barriers have sporadically appeared on the pavements of Notting Hill. Houses and shop fronts are being boarded up with thick panels of chipboard. The boards are instantly covered in graffiti and posters advertising DJ sets and foam parties. Locals are battening down the hatches, getting ready to make themselves scarce. This flurry of activity can only mean one thing: Notting Hill carnival is upon us.

As one who has worked in the vicinity for nigh on four years, I know these signs only too well. I also know exactly what to expect on my return to work come next Tuesday. Unlike the technicoloured costumes and the sound of steel drums, it is not going to be pretty.

A general air of hangover fatigue will rest on the neighbourhood. It will be as if an urban street artist has colour washed the pavements and roads in a deep, dark layer of filth. To walk on it will be slippery and sticky in parts. To slip on it and risk skin contact will be a serious health hazard.

Lone, tattered flower garlands will lie abandoned, gummed to Portobello Road. Bright pink feathers will poke expectantly out of large trash piles, and those unfortunate courtyards that didn’t get the chipboard up in time will be transformed into gigantic dustbins. If you’re lucky, the odd carnival reveller will still be staggering the streets, semi-clad in shorts and a ripped shirt. His shoes will be long gone.

The smell will hit around the junction of Notting Hill Gate with Kensington Park Road. A stale mélange of beer, sweat and curried goat. It will find its way around every corner and through the slightest crack in every window. It will linger for several days. So will the trash, the filth, the chipboards and the steel barriers.

That is, until a mammoth amount of precipitation and several branches of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea come and take everything away again. And we can relax again until next year.

If you don’t feel like queuing for hours at Notting Hill Carnival’s crowded pubs and food stalls for rum punch or curried goat, think ahead and prepare a picnic or packed lunch. Notting Hill has some lovely little squares where you can sit and enjoy the sound systems, and Vouchercodes.co.uk has some great deals with Tesco at the moment, so you can enjoy carnival without breaking the bank – or losing your cool!