I’ve been meaning to create this little post for over three weeks now! I guess that says something to me about my management of my life. Anyway, I have managed to get back to it. Kite day is something the organisation did last summer too and I like the ambition. What organisation I hear someone ask. I don’t know! I think I like it partly as it takes me back to, hm, probably 1979/80 when I had a phase of making kites (and, related, making up paper lampshades for my then flat).
What was funny to me, looking down from “my” terrace up on level L here where I live, was that the organisers didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of explaining that kites need wind and that if you looked around down where they were organising things, it would rapidly become clear that there were areas in wind shadow whether of the saddle or of our pretty substantial building. But there was a real diversity of kites and many people having fun which is what matters!
Here are some images from my aerial viewpoint on the event. You should be able to click on the rather ugly first view of the gallery to be able to step through them in full size for your browser.
And now some videos (via vimeo, you should be able to click on the image to start the video and the little icon, bottom right of the image, just before the “vimeo” should open the video full screen on your device). Warning, it’s a bit noisy! This does rather illustrate that people hadn’t been told that they were in vortex there on the saddle and would fly their kites much more successfully if they walked up “Sue’s run” to the left for a bit. (1 minute and 12 seconds.)
And a bit later (38 seconds).
Rather poor hand holding by me and it illustrates that where they were trying to fly the big and rather wonderful kites was really badly chosen, it’s in double wind shadow with a seasoning of leftover vortices from the saddle! (22 seconds.)
This one caught a better breeze and shot up past a rather grand kite doing well. (23 seconds.)
and more of the same challenges for the kite flyers and your humble cinematographer! (1’16”)
Definitely brought back some good memories from days when I guess I took work less seriously! Lovely to see so many people up here having fun.
Created 15.viii.24. As usual, everything, text and the images, released under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).