The long weekend and Notting Hill like you've never seen it before..

What a fab long weekend - it's Wednesday and I'm still recovering! Monday was the wild and fabulous Notting Hill Carnival - I never thought I'd be dancing in the streets in the middle of the day with a muscly black man, pushing a trolley full of alcohol, pouring rum straight down my throat, straight after sipping a luscious coconut - straight from the coconut! This is me (in the photo) hanging out with my coconut and a couple of London bobbies. The festival is an annual celebration of the Caribbean culture and they reckon there was about one million people who hit the streets - either in the Mardi Gras-style parade, or just walking around enjoying the music, foods and general craziness (check out this old dude we meet grooving along in the street). The festive spirit was amazing - people were outside their houses selling things, dressed up in crazy outfits and also, quite conveniently for us, charging people £1 to use their bathrooms. We got a little worried when Shell and I traipsed up the stairs of a random house to use this guys bathroom, and the entrepreneur tried to sell us some pink handcuffs, but it was all good after that and we made a friend (though the highlight of the day was definitely my coconut!)

The rest of the weekend was also brilliant - anyone coming to London MUST try Ping Pong. It's a Dim Sum restuarant in Soho and is the place to go for yummy little parcels of heaven and exotic cocktails (lychee mojito anyone?) We went on Friday night and I'm a new fan.

On Sunday I ventured to Greenwich markets (I'm describing my long weekend in a pretty unordered fashion here). I will devote a whole post to this gem another day, as a day out in Greenwich deserves anyone's full attention! The antique and jewellery markets are fab and the day is not complete without sipping a strawberry beer in the sun-dappled garden of The Gipsy Moth until dusk sets in and the resident magician has performed. More on that later...