The carnival route takes us past notorious council estates, restaurants and art galleries boarded up for the day, and million-pound mansions and elegant terraced houses. In their place are multiple street vendors selling mainly Caribbean food and drink - jerk chicken, curry goat and rice and peas, roti and rum punch - and many others selling food from all round the world.

For Elimu the round trip is 3.5miles long, which would probably take an hour to walk on a normal day, but takes anything from 4 to 6 hours on Carnival days. It is a fun and liberating experience to take over the streets, all normal traffic is banned, and the interaction between the crowds and the bands is part of the carnival tradition.