Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2011 17:37:16 GMT
Having dallied all day contemplating what the weather was going to do, bearing in mind that Friday was beautifully hot and sunny and stayed that way, against all the predictions, I decided to ignore all the forecasts on here for the Saturday and Sunday and go do something kiting, there are not many festivals left to do this year! Arriving at 8.30pm after a traffic jam free drive that took an hour and twenty minutes to do the seventy miles I was pleasantly surprised at the stunning panoramic views from our allocated camping pitches looking down off the Dunstable Downs. If you have never been, its like Devils Dyke but immaculately run and maintained by the National Trust, who were our hosts for this first two day event where they allowed camping as a trial and by all accounts they were pleased with our non intrusive conduct!
First thing I noticed on Saturday morning was that the stunning views had been stolen and on closer examination ( once I opened my one good eye, but that’s another story ) it was dark rain clouds stretching to eternity from where I stood, and marching towards us. Rain followed and from the dryness of my abode I could see the arena displays of the likes of the Flying Squad, Team Spectrum and others persevering in their matching wet gear, high winds and squalls to put on their routines to possibly one member of the public, but I never saw him or her?
The afternoon from about 1pm the sun came out, the well drained Downs showed no signs of the mornings soaking, lots of kites up and more public came, the occasional heavy shower thinned out the variety of kites flown, the Rev flyers retreated, along with the less keen public. The Beaties and Pete & Lyn Smith kept up their big kite displays as much as possible in the distance from where we were camped. No sign of women in bikinis as I had come to take for granted at the beginning of the week at the French kite festival! There was a night fly starting at 9pm but I gave up at 10pm as the wind chill was numbing.
Sunday was a good day all considered, a reversal of the showery weather…dry all morning and light showers in the afternoon with two or three heavy ones that only ever lasted a couple of minutes before the sun came out once again and dried everything in an instant, steaming off the grass and pathways. Public attendance was huge today, the car parks filled and emptied continuously during the course of the day, as wet ones left they were replaced by dry ones, quite amusing to watch! A good day of flying all in all and from about 3pm onwards the wind speed kept increasing making pulling kites down a challenge!
Most attendees left on Sunday evening, some of us stayed on till Monday morning thus missing all the traffic. Not a great turnout of Kite fliers but that was hardly surprising. Not that I have to, but thank you to Martin Corrie (Roughmac) for the invite and arranging it all, and to those others that were involved in the organisation of the event who’s workload remains the same, or worse, regardless of what the weather does.
Click image for the full album:
First thing I noticed on Saturday morning was that the stunning views had been stolen and on closer examination ( once I opened my one good eye, but that’s another story ) it was dark rain clouds stretching to eternity from where I stood, and marching towards us. Rain followed and from the dryness of my abode I could see the arena displays of the likes of the Flying Squad, Team Spectrum and others persevering in their matching wet gear, high winds and squalls to put on their routines to possibly one member of the public, but I never saw him or her?
The afternoon from about 1pm the sun came out, the well drained Downs showed no signs of the mornings soaking, lots of kites up and more public came, the occasional heavy shower thinned out the variety of kites flown, the Rev flyers retreated, along with the less keen public. The Beaties and Pete & Lyn Smith kept up their big kite displays as much as possible in the distance from where we were camped. No sign of women in bikinis as I had come to take for granted at the beginning of the week at the French kite festival! There was a night fly starting at 9pm but I gave up at 10pm as the wind chill was numbing.
Sunday was a good day all considered, a reversal of the showery weather…dry all morning and light showers in the afternoon with two or three heavy ones that only ever lasted a couple of minutes before the sun came out once again and dried everything in an instant, steaming off the grass and pathways. Public attendance was huge today, the car parks filled and emptied continuously during the course of the day, as wet ones left they were replaced by dry ones, quite amusing to watch! A good day of flying all in all and from about 3pm onwards the wind speed kept increasing making pulling kites down a challenge!
Most attendees left on Sunday evening, some of us stayed on till Monday morning thus missing all the traffic. Not a great turnout of Kite fliers but that was hardly surprising. Not that I have to, but thank you to Martin Corrie (Roughmac) for the invite and arranging it all, and to those others that were involved in the organisation of the event who’s workload remains the same, or worse, regardless of what the weather does.
Click image for the full album:
