The Clothes Whisperer: the fashion blog with wit that sparkles: Over the Hill of Not at le Carnival

For two days a year, and, what seems to me (and my seemingly bottomless hoard of taxi receipts to/from Shoreditch) to really only be two days a year, East migrates West and chaos in all its unbridled, beer-can strewn glory. Notting Hill Carnival, my friends. Learn it, live it, love it.

We began the day with a BBQ on my balcony, to be followed by a brief venture into the carnival's throbbing heart, where we dodging drug dealers and cops alike whilst taking in the smell of all manners of meat roasting on open grills (and a few other, let's say, "vegetarian" offerings). We stopped at a few reggae and one Ska stand, did a bit of crowded bobbing, staying just long enough to catch sight of a little girl being carried through the streets in a spray painted chair, clad in camo and toting a fake machine gun at the Viva Fidel stand. Ah the children of the revolution.

In an unusual bit of luck, I caught a straw hat from one of the performers but then started to lose my party drive as the crowd seemed to be boa constricting. I suddenly wished that my flat was a few streets further west so me and my friends too could hang out the windows of the building and make everyone stuck in the mish mosh feel like peons.

We topped off the afternoon at my favorite local haunt, Notting Hill's BBB, where the dancing queens made the most of their strong thighs wielding sky-scraper platforms well into the night and probably the next day.

But NYFW (no, not til next week, but the work starts now I'm afraid) waits for no carnival, and my reveling this year was reduced by half, i.e. it ended with me on a plane at 7am the next day instead of face down on the floor and ready to do it all over for a second day. This just means that next year, we'll have to do it bigger and better.