MKF Fun Weekend 2006

Mill Hill School, Ripley, Derbyshire, 29th July 2006

Although this was a two day camping festival for a number of reasons we could only attend on the Saturday so packing the car full of kites, kids, and er 'stuff' we set off from Sheffield to Ripley - late as usual. So of course we arrived very late, parked in the wrong car park (but of course!) - and hurried off to see if we could get the girls names down for the drumming and puppet making workshops. We had had a slight crises the night before when we realized that we were supposed to book these activities. Anyway daughter no 1 went off straight away to join the drumming group, and daughter No 2 off to make some finger puppets. I moved the car from where I had left it to the side of the arena - then went to try out the (small) buggy field. Thankfully I was more or less by myself and although the field was small, it was just large enough to have lots of fun zooming around. The wind was up and down which meant that the Bullet 5.5 was sometimes fine, and other times, interesting. The only mishap was trying to go on two wheels then I ended up on no wheels - and as the grass was so dry I ended up with very nice friction burns on my arm and leg. That will teach me to be clever! (Well actually it won't.....)

After lunch I flew the Revolution on the grass outside the arena since there were no other fliers or people there. After a few minutes I was told not to as there had been 'comments' about this from some of the single line fliers as the arena was for single line kites only. Anyway I moved off to the field assigned to non-single line kites - but I'm afraid I can't begin to work out the objection here - there were no other kites in the area. Oh well....

Later on I volunteered to 'perform' in the arena with the Revolution. When the time came I suggested using some of the music I have been using whilst flying (kind of trying a routine to). However this was all on my MP3 player which wouldn't connect up to the PA correctly, but I was free to choose something off the stack of CD-R's that Jim had by the PA. I choose Money for Nothing off Dire Straight's Brothers in Arms for my 'masterpiece' completely forgetting that this track is 8 minutes long and with a very long and quiet intro. So I performed my 'routine' (hah! I made it up on the spot!) watched by the crowds of one (or was it two?). Fun doing it though. - maybe one day I will pluck up the courage to try my hand at competing.

I managed to get through most of the quad line kites that afternoon - the Freevol LX, the Synergy Deca, and the Revolution of course. The wind continued to be kind of up and down whilst remained strong. I even had a fighter kite lesson with Stafford Wallace which was really useful as I had been doing a couple of things wrong - and in fact I ended up buying a second fighter kite off him.

As the afternoon wore on and the fields emptied of people daughter no 1 wanted a go in the buggy - so I let her loose on an empty field with my small Decathlon Triboard. To her credit she a) looked cool with my sun glasses (way cooler than me) and b) actually managed to move the buggy a couple of metres by kite power. The rest of the time was spent with her having loads of fun flying the Triboard and me pushing daughter no 2 around fast in the buggy - which is extremely hard work.

As for the workshops - well daughter no 2 didn't get very far with the puppets, but no 1 had a very nice time doing the drumming and had been looking forward to performing the routine in the evening. Sadly everyone else had kind of melted away but the drummer guy put on something with her - which she (and us as proud parents) enjoyed. In fact it was all so nice we all stayed for the excellent barbecue and had a nice chat with various other fliers.

One of the other memories of the day was seeing an accomplished delta trick flyer performing tricks with a very graceful and beautiful delta kite. Upon talking to him I found it was Mark Clements and it was his own design Trident kite (which shortly afterwards he started producing commercially as Jest of Eve kites and I now own one - still can't fly it like he can, but still one day....).

All in all a very nice day - and one I hope will be repeated.