Cowley Road Carnival

This is Yaram Arts Medieval African Carnival in the Cowley Road Carnival parade. I knew that, despite stereotypes about Oxford, I live in a very diverse place but I knew nothing about the medieval Africans. (Edit: I've just discovered they were visiting us from London.)

It was Horns of Plenty's carnival warm-up that reached through my windows and attracted me out while the streets were still fairly empty. The Afro-Fusion Dance coordinator (who, as a small child, danced in front of the stall I was helping run at the first ever Cowley Road Carnival in 2001 and attracted attention even then) was on her way to meet the rest of her group and... well it's carnival (extra 1).

As well as the restaurants (Bangladeshi, Lebanese, Chinese, Syrian, Turkish, Italian, Greek...) bringing affordable food out onto the street, the procession included the Oxfordshire Pakistani and Kashmiri Community (good to see those two groups under the same banner), Nepalese Community Oxfordshire, Sudanese Community Oxford, Ghanaian Youth, Afro-Fusion Dance (extra 2), The West Papuan Community, the Oxford Timorese Community (extra 3), the Oxfordshire Bangladeshi Association waving the biggest Union Jack I've seen in a very long time along with the Bangladeshi flag, and many interest-focussed community and arts groups most of which were also racially diverse (extra 4).

After the disaster of Covid and funding problems, this is the first non-virtual Carnival since 2019. It was great to see the streets full and happy.

I think my prosopagnosia is getting worse. I wasn't expecting to see Secondborn at Carnival, but you'd think I'd have recognised her when she walked towards me. I was chatting with someone I'd just met, and she was dressed up and in the company of someone I didn't know, but even so, she's been my daughter for over half my life (by six days, I've just calculated).