Carnival Day.

The sky was suspiciously grey when I looked out of the window this morning. However apart from a few moments of light drizzle it stayed dry until 5.00 by which time the carnival itself had finished. The party in the playing field should have gone on until 7.00 but I expect people beat a hasty retreat once the heavy rain started.

Early in the morning a large flock of Manx Shearwaters were out in the bay along with some gannets who were sending up their characteristic plumes of water as they plummeted into the sea. No sign of any dolphins.

 

We were at the boat park early to fill the skiff with costumes and props before it was towed up to the other end of the village. Peter went in the car to save his knee and the rest of us walked up. That gave us a chance to see the decorated houses which are a big feature of the carnival and to admire the seawall still covered in pictures from last weekend's Chalkfest. I expect this latest rain will have washed it all off again.

Once at the far end of the village we turned the skiff into a gondola and decorated it with Venetian scenes signed by Borthy and plenty of tinsel.

More floats and our mini gondolier arrived as six of us walkers turned ourselves into Venetian carnival goers.

I will post more photos when they are put on FB. Here is a short compilation video showing the great variety of costumes and floats to be seen today. Our gondola appears briefly at 1.00.

Eventually the procession began and we made our way slowly down the High Street every now and again stopping to sing bellow out 'Just one Borthetto, give it to me. Delicious ice-cream from fair Cymru (Wales). Borth is the place to be. Just one Borthetto, give it to me.' Most people smiled while a few children especially the only two we saw holding Cornettos, looked horrified. 

The order of floats kept changing and towards the end we were followed by some inflated dinosaurs so all we could hear was shouts of 'Look at the dinosaurs.' from the children in the crowd.

After changing the gondola back to a skiff and leaving it safely in the boat yard Peter and I took everything home and went back down to gather at a friend's house for hot dogs and drinks. A bit later I wandered over to the playing field to soak up the atmosphere and say hi to anyone I knew. It's more fun on the field if you're with a group of friends which wasn't the case for me this year. Instead I met up with Peter and we went and sat on the beach with some of our rowing club friends until the rain began in earnest at which point we headed for home. It's fun being in the carnival but quite tiring for us older folk.