LIFESTYLE

This year 80,000 revellers descended on Bristol to celebrate the raucous St Pauls Carnival. But what’s it like when the party’s on your doorstep? Leah Eades recently moved into a house on Portland Square.

When I came back from my cycle ride, sweaty and tired, the carnival was already in full swing. Unfortunately, I had not really thought this through, and so came onto Portland Square on the corner exactly opposite where I lived. Normally just a 30-second cycle, but not in these crowds. Cue five stressful minutes of pushing my bike through the crowds, running over people’s feet and children, and getting abuse from strangers who, pushed to the limits by the crowd, would hiss through grated teeth: “Why would you bring a bike here?!” Erm, because I live here and didn’t fancy abandoning it for good at Cabot Circus? Now please let me through to my house.

Inside, things weren’t much better. There are seven people sharing this house, which means seven lots of people bringing their friends – who of course were all here for the carnival – inside. A queue had already developed for the toilet. And it looked like it would be getting bigger, because outside complete strangers, sick of portaloos, were trying their luck knocking on our door and offering us 50p to pee.

St Pauls Carnival certainly brought out the entrepreneurial spirit of local residents. Aside from our thriving rent-a-loo business, people were making a killing selling food, drinks and laughing gas. On the road next to us, one large family were dishing out homemade curries and jerk chicken, drowned out by a gigantic soundsystem and surrounded by dancers. On another road, a Cuban man hawked his own special blend of sangria – it was delicious. My magician friend made so much money by doing street performances he had to go change the pennies into notes three times because they was too heavy. Another friend, an art student, put her skills to good use by face-painting, and got offered money, food, drink and illegal substances for her troubles.

That’s the thing with street festivals – you’ve got to get stuck in. Sure, I could have stayed inside the house complaining about the thumping bass until 2am, but what’s the point of that? Better to be out there dancing until 2am. Festivals give us the excuse to get together and make something beautiful and to really feel like part of a community – something not to be taken for granted these days. And community is something that Bristol does well – this is a city where just a few streets will take you from one teeming, cohesive local community to another, each with its own unique vibe and each proud of its identity. You’ve just got to hope that the day after, once the stalls are dismantled, the rubbish has been cleared away and normality resumes, you can keep a sense of what you created together. Except maybe without the soundsystems.

Copyright Leah Eades 2011