Bridgewater Carnival

Friday November 9 - Ian and I went on a BISC (Bristol International Student Center) trip to Bridgewater to see the annual procession of carnival floats. The event is part of the Guy Fawkes day celebrations. The exact origins of this particular festival are lost but the festival was officially recognised in 1881. The celebration includes a parade featuring floats with lots of lights and music as well as street performers and fireworks which are set off by hand by "squbbers" (unfortunatley we had to leave before the quibbing began). The floats were amazing some of them quite large (the max. length is 30.48 m) and one had difficulty making the wide turn at part of the route. Some of the larger floats used up to 30,000 light bulbs and you could feel the heat from all that energy as they passed. There were some floats which had moving parts and coreographed dancers while others had ellaborate sets on which all the members had to hold the same pose for the entire parade route. The procession was really fun to watch especially since the age range on the participants ran from about 7 to 70+. We will definitly try to go again next year.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4627684267898472761&hl=en