Carnivale

Like last year, Zoe went to the Carnivale, which is put on by the city. I am still amazed and delighted by how many activities are organized by the local government, and Zoe seems to really enjoy them. On Saturday, I had taken Zoe to the toy store to find her a costume. She arrived with a pretty good idea of what she wanted (Purple princess dress), so when we were browsing the aisles and came upon a purple and pink princess dress, it was a Raiders of the Lost Arc moment. I half expected choral singing in the background and a beam of light to illuminate the dress. Zoe got very quiet (which is her "11" on the excitement scale), pulled the box of the shelf, looked at me steadily, and said "this one." There would be no debate or substitutions, particularly since a purple dress had been the subject of about half of our conversations with her for a month or so. Anyway, this morning, I did the best braid I could summon and dropped her off at the nanny's with the dress. I took a few hours off work in the afternoon to come home to take pictures of Zoe, and witness the spectacle. They had "Monsieur Carnivale" loaded up onto a truck when I got there


And Zoe was there, with her nanny, looking very princess-like. I noticed that this particular kingdom seemed to have quite a few other little princesses

It started raining immediately, of course, so the parade started. This involved a surprisingly large group of little cowboys, ladybugs, dogs and princesses walking behind the truck, while enraged chav drivers trailed behind.



Next came the burning of Monsieur Carnivale! It was by now raining very hard indeed, but whatever they added to Monsieur Carnivale to increase his flammability worked very well




Finally, we went to the activity hall, where they had even organized snacks and drinks for the kids: bonbons, brioches and sodas! An excellent event, even with the rain!