28 May 2011 (Saturday) - Brighton Kite Festival



With my cold in full flow I think it’s fair to say that I saw every hour of the night. And I was up and shaved by 7am. And in Asda by 8am. We needed the makings of brekkie, and we didn’t have any milk or butter either.
We got back to camp to find we’d forgotten a lot of other things too, but someone else would get those bits and bobs. And they did, and got me some medicine for my cold as well. Brekkie was good, and whilst someone else did the washing up I flew a kite. In retrospect the wind was probably too strong to fly a kite – I managed to snap a spar. And so spent the next few minutes down at one of the kite traders buying a replacement.

It’s something of a tradition that there is a kite making workshop at Brighton Kite Festival: children get to make their own kites under the expert advice and tutelage of experienced kite fliers. And over the last few years I’ve taken to helping with this workshop. It’s fun, even if the children do seem to be a bit thick.
Today I was at first sight somewhat surplus to requirements, so I was on “Kite Hospital”: as the children destroyed the kites they’d made, so I would be on fixing duty for those kites that were fixable. However several were so trashed that the only option was to throw them away and make new ones.

With the kite workshop over I made my way back to base camp where a gaggle of assorted children were running round with toy guns pretending to shoot each other. They told me that they were playing “Telly-ban”. I suppose that I used to play “Cowboys & Indians”, but I can’t say that I was happy with their game. But it wasn’t my problem, and I left them to it.

Tea was excellent (chicken fajitas), and once the washing up was done we settled down for a beer or two. And then my phone rang – there had been talk of wandering into Brighton this evening to see a Sparks tribute band. Were we still going? But I’d forgotten all about that. Maybe I’ll go next year. Instead this year we had a camp fire and beer (I quite liked my home brew), and then port and cheese, finally staggering off to bed at 2.30am.

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