I set off promptly to get to the kite festival, and went via Lidl’s. Last Sunday they had some really good camping chairs. Today I couldn’t find them, so I asked the assistant where they were. He just stared at me. I asked if they’d sold out. He said yes. What he meant was “I don’t care” because I found what I wanted not five yards away.
Loaded up with kites and beer I made my way to Teston Bridge Picnic site and found I was the first one there. So I cracked on with getting the tents up. The original plan was for me to get the communal tent (“Brown and Smelly”) half way up, and then when everyone else arrived, they’d help me lift the tent up completely. And in the meantime I’d get people’s individual tents up for them. I had all of that done within a couple of hours, and so thought I’d have a go at lifting “Brown and Smelly” on my own. After all, I’ve done it before. And I did it again. All on my own. So I paused for a meat pie and a bag of crisps before setting up the tables and chairs. And I had everything ready by 2.30pm.
It was at this point I decided I’d had enough of “neighbourhood watch”. Some nosey busybody had sat down on a nearby bench and was reporting my every movement to an accomplice via his phone. I wandered over to him smiling, and commented how bad mobile phone reception was in the area. The nosey busybody couldn’t run away fast enough.
That then left me alone in the field. And as the cloud came over and the wind picked up, it was rather lonely, and I effectively had nothing to do but wait for people to arrive. And then I had a stroke of inspiration. I was at a kiting event, it was windy…. so I got some kites out. First of all a nice pink delta which went up like a rocket, and stayed up. I attached some line laundry to it, including an inflatable frog, a couple of fish windsocks and a sky dancer. I was quite impressed wit the result, and I tied the line to a ground stake and left it all flying itself whilst I got out another old favourite kite; my circoflex. I do like it, even if it seems to have all the aerodynamic qualities of a sack of potatoes. I gave up after half an hour, and decided I’d fiddle with the thing’s bridling later in the weekend.
Some more of our party arrived shortly after six o’clock, and we soon were eating sweet n sour. Very nice! Whilst washing up we watched a couple of people arrive with their caravans, and Bonefish wandered over to spend the evening with us over a few beers. As the evening wore on and the wind picked up, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done the right thing in bringing a caravan rather than a tent. Especially as (after a few pints) we staggered to our tents only to find one had half collapsed because of the wind.
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