The other weekend was the start of the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (next month sees the Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival all take place – summer is festival city time here). As usual the Jazz and Blues fest kicked off with the Carnival. Unlike previous years it didn’t go down Princes Street, and instead was all within the West Princes Street Gardens (I’m guessing to avoid shutting down the tram network now).

As usual I took far too many photos (these are just a few), but hey, it’s a wonderful occassion and it marks the real beginning of summer and the the festival season here, and I got to watch it all with a dear chum, which always makes these things better.

The weather forecast predicted showers, but we got lucky, it stayed dry and at some points the sun even came out as if to admire the colours and costumes and smiles.

As ever there were some fabulous costumes, colours, music and smiles from all around the world.