The weather this morning didn’t look good for today’s carnival. It was raining first thing and didn’t stop until about 11:30. The floats were due to leave from the council offices at 12:00 noon on their route through the town. We didn’t have to leave much before then as it is only about a minute’s walk to the end of the road, so when the clouds let rip for 5 minutes at about 10 to, it wasn’t a problem. We walked to the end of the road and stood there with our neighbours who had all gone up to see the parade and the rain did stop completely while the parade went past.

The parade was again led by the Harpenden Pipe Band, who were really good. The bubbles in the photo are from the bubble cars behind them. There were a couple of vintage cars with bubble machines attached to the back. The kids loved them, especially the horn on the car. The kids also enjoyed the majorettes who were near the start.

It was only a small parade taking about 20 minutes to go past, but everyone had put a lot of effort into their floats and costumes. Needless to say as soon as it had gone past, the rain started again, so although we stayed dry, anyone further along the route would have got soaked.

Later in the afternoon, we went into town to the carnival. We watched several of the displays and the kids went on the fair rides and climbed over a fire engine. The mountain bike stunt team M.A.D. were really good, keeping us all entertained for 25 minutes.

The ‘Knights of the Crusades’ display was disappointing. The whole set was mimed to a pre-recorded soundtrack, which wasn’t particularly clear anyway. (When we saw knights jousting at the Joust last year, the person introducing was using a radio mic and it was much clearer as well as being more spontaneous).

The Tudor Festival has been moved to 23rd June this year and will also play to the ‘900 years of Dunstable’ theme as well as the Tudor theme. This should be a much better time of year than previous years when it has taken place in November.

Thanks to Lyall and jmb for recent comments.