Like many reading this, I attended this year's Nottinghill carnival, however unlike most my day started around 4:30 am as I'd told my friend Jo Alexander, and the historian who introduced me to the concept of J'ouvert that I'd join them on the streets of Notting Hill at first light. Now not wanting my daughter to feel left out, when my alarm went off at 4:30 am with energy I marched into her room, telling her to lose the sleep from her eyes and arise as we have a mission to accomplish. (If looks could kill! �) We arrived on the streets of West London around 6:45 am. While waiting for Jo who had me slow pacing around like a stood-up date! I took in the scene of early morning Jouvert and the few boiler suit wearers, flag holders and solo Jab Jab who were making their way to enjoy the morning celebration and remembrance in Jouvert. Finally managing to coordinate with Jo, we made it to Ladbroke grove station where we were greeted by streams of colourful paint on the streets, on clothes and definitely on faces. I quickly took my daughter to the shop and wrapped a blue bag around her hair. She was even less impressed with me. � Anyhow in the mix of things and Jouvert in full swing, I spent the next two to three hours like Neo dodging merciless paint throwers, who aimed at me as they thought I was too clean. But like most things in life, it's always those closest to you who hurt you the most, as the streams of colourful paint that managed to get on to me were from no other than my daughter! What I will say, without a doubt, was this was the most fun at carnival I'd had in years. What made this even more impactful for me was the added layer of Jo telling me some of the deeper meanings behind the things we saw at Jouvert, such as a man carrying a baby doll and another carrying a coffin. For the full post visit our Red Light Busking - Facebook page, and for free tickets please visit the link in our bio #redlightbusking #carnival #jouvert #jouvertmorning #carnival2022 #art #caribbean #caribbeanfood #caribbeanmusic #caribbeanlife #london #londonfood #jerk #jerkchicken #jerkpork