Aldeburgh Carnival Part 2

After coming back from the shops some of the boys got a bit peckish, and seeing as I was the only girl in the house at that time, one of them asked me "Lottie, please can you make us something?"

I had a look in the fridges and one thing was for sure, we had a lot of bacon.

Bacon sandwiches it was!

 

A few hours later we decided it was about dinner time, and even though I was completely full, I wouldn't say no to pizza, who says you have to be hungry to eat?

 
This genuinely is one of my favourite foodie places, apart from "PIZZA", I don't really think they have a name, but they often have a stall in my local town's market place, after spying them stone baking pizzas on request and it only taking a maximum of 4 mins to actually get that pizza from a ball of dough into a delicious stone baked pizza gripped between your hands, it's the ultimate fast food, sorry McDonald's.

Plus you get to see them make it, I'm nosy so I think this is a big plus.

 

Josh went for his favourite, ham and pineapple.

And I went for my favourite (and Josh's worst nightmare because he detests mushrooms), ham and mushroom.

The staff were really acomodating and didn't put any cheese on mine, thank goodness!

Then some of us couldn't hold on for the 1 minute walk back to the house..

But when we were back, we feasted.

  

  Because the house was rented, and because there were so many of us staying there, glasses and drink containers became limited. I did spy Bridie drinking wine out of a tea cup, but Josh , G and Charlie had better ideas, Pinterest eat your heart out, they used jars.

After we finished our pizzas and drinks, we made our way out onto the beach.

As it gets dark the town takes part in another parade, only this time there's no dress up, you each have a lantern, you start in the town centre and finish on the beach. I used to do it every year when I was younger but we had forgotten about it until everyone turned up at the beach with their lanterns.

I was seriously kicking myself for not bringing my Canon with me, but it would have got broken, so these will have to do!

After everyone arrives at the beach there's a beautiful firework display.
These big ones are my favourite, the ones that sneak into the sky quietly, then explode with a loud bang!

Then last but not least, we ended up at the fairground to go on Rock City.
Yes, I know, it may be over priced and tacky, but it's my favourite ride and so so so much fun!!

 I just wish I hadn't have had to come home the day after!!

Aldeburgh Carnival Part 1

Every year Aldeburgh plays host to a carnival that takes place in mid-August. A large proportion of Suffolk flocks there and I've been nearly every year I can remember.

This year Josh's best friend Charlie had a house, and invited lots of us to go and stay for a few days, I took far too many photos of the carnival and I can't cut them down because they're all fab, so picture overload!

It's an opportunity for the whole of the town to get together, and everyone takes part, even these lovely ladies, who were very nice about me taking their picture!

The most of then houses all along the highstreet each have a balcony, and if you can get at one these are the best places to watch the parade, no craning our necks to see over people's shoulders for us because luckily, Josh's best friend was renting a house and had invited us to stay and the house was positioned so that we were one of the first to see the floats go past.

Rather exciting stuff.

First came the marching band..

..Who lead the carnival Queen in.

From what I understand, the choosing of the Queen is a bit like Aldeburgh X-Factor, she has to be a good egg and play a role in the community, as well as being easy on the eyes. Yikes.

The crowning was just past the house so we couldn't see it, so we chatted and pointed out costumes and people we knew to each other.

The jelly fish were my favourite costumes, and they bobbed along to the band.

The light house was so cool, the gap is where the driver sits on a quad bike and the effort was amazing!

This was by far my favourite float, the seaside theme was used to create an ice cream van but they handed out ice creams as they went past, one downside of being on the balcony- No ice creams.

After the parade had finished we walked into town to the shops to get supplies and snacks, on our way we got stuck in the middle of a samba performance, the day didn't end here, but that's for another post!

Barnage 2013

This weekend one of my best friends sent me a text inviting me to one of her parties, the day before it happened, thanks El, a little short notice but often unplanned things are more fun!
Just as I hopped into the car to go, Ellie replied to my text of "What are you wearing?" with "Red and yellow, lifeguard."
It turns out she had forgotten to tell me a crucial detail... The party was beach themed, thanks El.
After dithering about wearing her dad's red swimming trunks we found an old mermaid costume (aged 7-8 years) that I jokingly put on, a strategically placed bandeau and 2 pairs of pants (I wasn't up for risking flashing) later, I was wearing the mermaid costume to the party, I wish I was joking.

Fake tan was liberally applied..

Then there were pictures..

And of course, mirror selfies..

I had actually come earlier and seen everything before the mess began, the bar was put up in one of the stables and it looked so nice with all the fairy lights, until everyone arrived!

Look how cool the DJ stand was! One of Ellie's sister's friends works as a DJ so he was roped in to do the music.

There where lots to do, apart from drinking and dancing, Ellie and I were the first on the racing inflatable where you had to race each other but tied with elastic to the back wall.

Later on, one of the elastics broke and one of the boys went flying through the curtained wall!

Behind the house was the campsite, there were so many tents that it looked like a mini festival, who needs V?

In the middle of the campsite were sumo wrestling suits and a map, obviously Ellie and I had to have a go..

But getting in and standing up was a challenge in itself!

When we did manage to get up, Ellie floored me almost immediately.

And it turned out it was her just being good, ahem, not me being weak.

Apres fighting, we went over to where the main party was looking for some grub, in one of the stables two mums were busy making paella for us all, just look how enormous it was!!

It wasn't quite done, so Ellie and I lended our tastebuds and helped out for a bit.

This "bit" turned into a "while" but it meant we were first in line when it was done, despite already having eaten our weight in it when we were "just tasting".

In the main area there was another fighting inflatable, you had to whack each other off the podium.

I didn't get a picture of Ellie completely destroying me on the podium, obviously I let her win, but I don't think I lasted 30 seconds on there.

Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, I only had my iPhone because I didn't want to take my baby (new camera) with me and risk it getting damaged!