In the spirit of 'starting the year as I mean to go' on I went to a festival yesterday. Hopefully the first of forty to celebrate my fortieth birthday year. It was the London's New Year's Day Parade 2010.
The hardest part of the day was actually getting out of bed, as the previous night's celebrations only finished around 3:30am (but that's another story as they say). However once that traumatic hurdle was surmounted the rest of the day went smoothly.
The parade started at midday so Kate and I arrived in Whitehall just before and after a little hunting managed to squeeze into a front row spot. Amazingly it was a beautiful blue skies day with bright sunshine, if very cold.
Oddly the London Parade was opened by the Delaware State University Marching Band. It would seem that the Parade is a popular draw for US marching bands, there were more than twenty taking part in the Parade.
What followed was a complete mixture, in the first hour the memorable participants were a US marching band, the Lord Mayor's horse drawn carriage, a US marching band, fancy dress donkeys, a US marching band, guide dogs with some gorgeous friendly puppies, a UK marching band, the war veterans association, a collection of miniature steam engines just big enough to pull a single person, a US marching band, the Richmond float celebrating bell ringing, a US marching band playing a very entertaining version of Thriller, Harrow's model Bristol Fighter II aeroplane, a very cheerful bunch of morris dancers, a US marching band, the Red Hat Society* looking stunning in their red hats and purple dresses, penny farthing riders, the City of Westminster float with characters from the Wizard of Oz (perhaps trying to represent that MPs live in a magical world of their own imagining) and, yes you guessed it, a US marching band.
At this point we were getting rather cold and so resorted to dancing on the spot and clapping to keep ourselves warm. We were in no way behaving in an unEnglish like fashion and enjoying the show, it was just the cold, honestly.
The highlights of the second hour were an impressive collection of Lotus cars, the youth of Hammersmith demonstrating circus skills, a Congo brass band, a US marching band, the Pearly Kings and Queens looking like they just stepped out of the 1930s with an amazing Austin Six, a UK marching band, the Ducati Owners club in fancy dress, a US marching band, the St Johns ambulance band with a young lad who amusingly managed to play the cymbals whilst apparently sleep walking (obviously another late night), a bloody amazing Japanese marching band that went freestyle and had the crowd roaring with approval, the Sussex bonfire societies, a US marching band, the borough of Barnet represented by a pink Rolls Royce (why? Anybody? Anybody?) and a US marching band.
By now I was suffering cramp in my left foot and Kate had lost feeling in the majority of her toes but we were determined to last it out until the end.
The final hour highlights, excluding another nine US marching bands, included British cheerleaders the mighty maidens (such a poor choice of name), a collection of Mini motor cars (one I swear driven by a dog), a fire brigade float, a group dressed as the ghostbusters complete with stunningly realistic proton packs and a ghostbuster car, two old routemaster buses, a lovely collection of old British built cars going back to the 1930s, Redbridge's steel band and accompanying martial arts section, a collection of impressively organised US cheerleaders, and almost at the end a roaring herd of laid back Harley riders.
All in all a surprisingly enjoyable start to the year. One festival down, thirty nine to go?
PS. Just for my oldest friend Ella, after careful observation of all the marching bands I must sadly report that there were no French Horns present at the event.
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