The carnival was perhaps one of the best things about coming back to the village where I lived so many of my years. It was an old experience. One of those precious ones.
As I arrived at a friend's house for the second leg of my moving houses until I finished work, 30 people were dressed in costumes and wigs. The front door was open and overflowing with people as though it was a can of beans. But the little chatter, excitement and mass of colour took me back to some place special.
It turned back the clock. Took away all the nastiness, the privatisation of individual lives and angry mob of technology. And it brought back family time, picnics, horse and carts but most importantly a massive expression of character.
It was the latter that's my favourite. And as I sat on the lawn waiting for girls and boys adorned in colourful 'cartoon' outfits, a boy told his friend: "we're from Old Basing. Mighty, mighty Old Basing." It wasn't so much that we were mighty in the sense that we had some grand influence within the UK but we had, for one day a year, a colourful union of people who came together in hoards in the sun. And that was a very powerful statement.
It was a shame that I couldn't be with mum and dad and my brothers on this day, but, as though in their memory, I sat on the grass banks I used to remember, and watched the parade come to me.
Old memories are great. And then a new experience hit me: I found it slightly strange to be peeing in a port-a-loo. It wasn't for the sweltering heat but the fact that I had never actually used one. When I told myself, I found that prospect weird. Not that it should be but I had just never had an excuse to use such a toilet. And for certain I wasn't imagining it to feel like I was riding in a car: gear stick and everything at my side.
A port-a-loo. How novel! It took me somewhere else. I felt truly rounded by the experience. Merging old and new: how exciting!
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