Taunton Carnival 2011

Every year, here in the South West, we have carnivals that take place around October/November.  They are a great spectacle and a lot of work goes into making them.  Before I'd moved down from London I'd never seen them or knew they occurred.

The carnival floats are designed and built by dedicated carnival clubs around the West Country.  These clubs work relentlessly to achieve the spectacular carnival entries.  The illuminated floats can be up to 100ft in length, and can have up to 30,000 light bulbs.   They attract large crowds and a lot of money is raised for charities where you can put money into collecting boxes or throw it into the passing trucks.

Taunton had it's Carnival on Saturday night.  I'm lucky to live in town where the Carnival passes so didn't have far to leave to see it.  Andy took a few photos of the highlights.

You need to really click on each photo to enlarge them to get to see the pictures better as these small thumbnails don't really do them justice.  This float featured the country with lots of singing and dancing, I can't remember the name of the song they sang but they were very enthusiastic

That is the back of my head in the foreground.  There were so many people there on the pavements it was hard to get a good spot.  Luckily we sneaked forward and manage to squeeze in near the front.

This float had a cute dragon theme

This one had a french theme

Not sure what this one was about but it was  good to look at

 We liked these the best, great costumes

We had a great weekend altogether and I will be writing up my blog posts soon as we've been busy taking pictures of Taunton town including the historic buildings outside the newly revamped Taunton Museum.

Thanks for stopping by .....