Loddon Valley Flyer. Inside this edition. Northhants Jolly Up. Portsmouth. Bristol. Dieppe. Jason Down Under. Forthcoming events.

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1 Loddon Valley Flyer Inside this edition Northhants Jolly Up Portsmouth Bristol Dieppe Jason Down Under Forthcoming events Festival 09 Gothic Delta s by Rob Portsmouth Photo by Alan

2 This edition has reports from the 3rd Jolly Up by Hayley as well as Portsmouth and Bristol by Linda and Dieppe by Mark. We also have an update on how Jason, Debs and Wally are getting on Down under!! Don t forget we meet at the NorthHants Buggy field the 3rd Sunday of every month, the next one is on the 19th Oct. See on the back cover for details of next months Light Up the Sky event and the 1st meeting for next years festival. Roy M at Weymouth showing the girls how it s done!! (Unseen in the background Marilyn looking on very closely!) OAP (in red) & carer, having fun at Portsmouth, no sorry it s Colin & Sharon Photo by Alan 2

3 Friday August 1 st arrived, and the day was spent putting up the Marquee and setting up the Beer Tent in preparation for the weekend s fun. With the beer tapped and the tables & chairs in place, we were ready for two days of relaxation and kite flying. We did an impromptu BBQ on the Friday evening, and the beer was sampled in large quantities! Saturday arrived to the smell on bacon rolls being cooked, always a good start to the day. It was a bit damp and overcast to begin with, but the sun made an appearance and stayed for the rest of the day. That helped to fill the sky with an array of kites and made for happy kite fliers! We had a visit from the couple (Hongye and Gordon) who won a competition to design a kite to be flown at the opening ceremony of the Bejing Olympics. Roy made the design up for them, using our printing process. It was a very well photographed kite! The evening BBQ was a success, and that was followed by the Auction. That was fun, and our thanks to all who donated to it. A chilli plant proved to be an expense purchase for Damon, but I m sure the fruits will be enjoyed for a long time to come! Sunday was a damp day, but it didn t stop the kite flying, which went all for most of the day. We had some Rev flying put on by Force 3, and Fractured Axel arrived in the afternoon to do trick flying, so plenty of room for all. We d like to thank all of you who supported the Weekend, it only works with you. We ll be doing it all again next year, the first one will be on the last weekend in April (so the weekend before Weymouth Kite Festival) Hayley Gillingham and Roy Broadley, Kites Up. Report by Hayley 3

4 After the weather we have had this summer we were all praying for a fine weekend for Portsmouth International kite festival, and so were very happy to wake up to sunshine on Friday morning! Trailer and truck packed with camping gear, kites and dogs and with a last minute addition of a solid trailer cover for Tony s buggy and we were off to meet up with Hayley and Roy for the annual convoy south! All went according to plan this year, with no unscheduled stops for water, tea, broken caravan, steaming vans etc., and we arrived in good time at the showground, to find that there was barely enough room behind the stand for a car, let alone a caravan, and someone was Mega Rev team Photo by Colin We soon managed to track down Joe from revolution to move his car, and got agreement to pitch the stand forward of the line to fit in the caravan, van, truck, tents etc. and got all set up. The first of several visits to Ken s kebabs was followed by a good old session in the caravan awning. We even got told to be parked in the stand area! Mega Rev team Photo by Colin Swiss peeps Photo by Colin quiet by security at 2am, trouble is they were knocking on the awning window for ages before we heard them! Saturday dawned with very light wind, but fortunately it soon got up a bit and most of the 4

5 guests and fliers were able to make a decent showing. Things that really stick out in my memory were the site of nearly 50 Rev s flying together, and the Swiss caterpillars! Saturday night was BBQ night, and we mostly managed to eat before the rain, just having to nip indoors for the dessert. The Auction highlights this year were the well fought contest between Joyce and Hayley for a crystal ornament, Mike Webb s winning bid for an IQuad, I managed to net myself one of the Swiss firebirds that I so admired at Basingstoke, and Roy s Migraine 4 line stunt kite scored an impressive 1st and final bid of 200!! After the rain on Saturday night we were a little worried about Sunday, but the God s were smiling and another dry day dawned. The wind was a little light again, but got better as the day went on, and the sky was filled with kites. Sunday evening saw some power kiting through the fairground from Tony and Simon, and I enjoyed a spot of night flying with lights on my Double Ba. There were rumours of some fighter kites being flown into hotel bedrooms, but I m sure no one we knew had anything to do with that. Jos Valcke Photo by Alan Clown Bol by Robert Van Wers Photo by Colin Swiss peeps Photo by Colin Another trip to Ken s was followed by more partying in the awning, during which a didgeridoo made an appearance, and some interesting guests visited for drinks. Poppy and Bonnie cleared up all the left over s, and generally behaved as normal, although they did NOT like the didgeridoo. The main task of the weekend filling the box with empty beer cans was a resounding success despite some sabotage efforts by people determined to crush the cans first! 5

6 Sunday night sadly produced some rain and Monday morning was damp. We all thought we would be off home early, but the weather improved, the dog show ran as planned and people started arriving. We finally packed up and arrived home happy and tired about 8pm! Report by Linda Report by Linda Photo by Colin Photo by Alan 6

7 The first thing we noticed as our convoy reached Bristol was how wet everywhere was! They had clearly had a lot more rain up there! One of the marquee Lorries was stuck in the field, and there were lots of puddles filled with straw! We were half way down this year right by the marquee in a great spot for seeing everything, and we had lots of room for our camp behind the stand, so after Poppy, Bonnie and Jess had had a bit of a run around and game of chase we set up camp and the stand. Friday night was BBQ night, and everyone, including the dogs ate well and soon started on the beers! The box to fill this weekend was larger than at Portsmouth so the challenge was on! Only beer cans with pulls still attached counted as we hoped to fly them later on as in previous years. Friday night was quite still with hardly any wind, so we decided to send up a couple of hot air balloons.. the first one went straight up, then straight down again once the fuel was exhausted. J Martin made a new fuel source from half a fire lighter and up it went again.. this time just making it onto the field before disappearing in flames! Other such japes and several visitors to Camp Kites Up followed and we learned a lot more than we ever wanted to know about a certain ladies pelvic floor!! Saturday dawned a nice day, after some early fog, and the wind came up a bit, and soon everyone was flying. There was again a mass Rev fly with nearly 50 kites in the arena, and some lovely displays by the invited guests! Saturday night was auction night, and again the Migraine 4 line stunt kite fetched a good price. A Dragon delta and a lovely set of eyes both fetched in excess of 400 and went to Cory from the US!! The firework display was spectacular as usual and was followed by a bit more chatting and drinking back at camp! Simon and Martin tried to get early nights (no chance!!) and we all went to bed very merry! Sunday dawned wet and foggy and didn t really get too much better all day. The wind was very light, and the first highlight of the day was a giant red nose being rolled around the showground by Andrew Beattie A giant black box kite made a brief appearance, and the huge killer whale actually flew for quite a while. Blue Peter turned up to film and took part in the Rok fight won admirably by Kelvin after some very tactical flying, and tony and I spent a while retrieving Rok s from the Rev arena after their lines were cut much to the disgust of the Rev fliers. We all closed up early on Sunday ready for the trip home! Report by Linda 7

8 I travelled in a group with Roy and Hayley plus some White Haorse flyers who many of you will know - Doug Jones, Martin Croxton, Phil Scarfe, and several others. The White Horse have been organising a trip to Dieppe now for many years, and by tradition we stay together in a Hotel called the Windsor. Martin does a great job of organising the room booking. If you are thinking of going independently, book early - at least 12 months in advance. There are also camp sites in Dieppe ( Camp Vitamin, of all things! ), but they are really beyond convenient walking distance from the seafront, and parking can be tricky. 8 We went out on Wednesday, which is really the 'middle' of the festival week, but this is a good compromise - you have a couple of days to chill out before the intensity kicks up a notch or two on the final weekend. The festival is structured in two halves, with half the seafront devoted to multiline flying, and the other half to single line stuff. Each half has two or three arenas. Arrayed alongside the single line arenas are the 'booths', one per country, where kite fliers from that country show off their stuff. Needless to say, with 50 nations represented, there's a lot to take in, some of it quite remarkable in it's inventiveness or artistry. Regarding the business of actually flying kites, there are three options. 1. On the Beach The public beach is a wellgroomed pebble beach where flying is allowed - most of the large inflatable's are flown at one end, you're free to fly whatever you want wherever you want. But note the 'public' bit above - it can get pretty crowded, especially at the weekend, and the French public are no more capable of safely launching and flying the cheap

9 stunt kite they have just bought than the English public are. 2. In the Arena Sometimes there are free flying slots in one of the several arena areas, and sometimes there's a 'UK flyers' slot. Keep your ear to the ground, go to the flyers meeting, and talk to Derek ( Kuhn ) on the UK stall to find out when you can fly in the arena. 3. Don't. There's plenty of stuff to see, plenty of bars and shops to frequent, and many many people to talk to. The seeing and the talking is really the special thing about Dieppe. This year I took nothing to fly of my own, and bought a Lynn tri-d box kite and some line on one of the stalls. It flew very nicely on the beach, and I have a souvenir :). Each evening is usually a story in it's own right. There are numerous places to eat, though advance booking is often required on the Saturday. Some places have a menu in English, but many don't - we had a bit of an edge sometimes, when we were accompanied by the multilingual Janneke ( Groen ). My personal favourite was the Indian we went to - Chicken Tikka Biriani ( and most of the other dishes... ) is apparently the same in French :). After the meal, the night is still young - suffice to say that one particular bar gave us a round on the house, such was the devotion we had shown it over the time we were there :). However, don't expect English beer, even if you find yourself in a bar called 'The Cambridge', and watch out for the Leffe - it's especially potent when consumed in litre glasses, as several kite fliers can attest to. Roy is said to be contemplating a bid to run the bar in the main marquee - that would solve the 'British Beer' problem! :) Several special events marked the closing of the festival. On Friday evening there was 'the meal', 9

10 which entails bussing 200 kite flyers to a school sports hall and feeding them. It can be a fun occasion, and an opportunity to meet the many guest flyers up close - but it can also be frustrating, as it takes quite a long time to serve food to 200 people. Many flyers do their own thing on Friday night, as we did. The Saturday night-fly is a feature of the Dieppe festival, since it is done in the style of a French 'son et lumiere', with music and spotlights of various sorts. They even turn the streetlights out for the finale! The 'artistic merit' varies from event to event, and this year's seemed to me to lack the cohesion of the last one, but it was still an impressive spectacle. On the Sunday afternoon, the finale was a parade around the town, with music and dancing and fliers taking part with banners and flags. Report and pictures by Mark 10

11 As some of you will know Jason emigrated to Australia last month. I asked him how the journey went and for an update on his travels. You ll have to forgive some of his language!! Very uneventful journey I'm afraid. Well... apart from getting locked in a talking shitter cubicle at Singapore airport. Haha It told me I was "a frucking plick and had bloken rock on door" Sounded like Kim Jong Ill on Team America It's going ok. Pretty stressful at times and finding it pretty hard to find somewhere to live. Have had to put work back a week, but managed to sort a car out today. I bought a Mazda Eunos. Think they're called an MX3 here It goes and stops and it's got 4 new tyres so fingers crossed. It's a 1.8 v6 and goes a bit. No sign of it catching fire yet. Bought a sat nav today. f'kin hate the things but hate not knowing where the f*** I'm going even more. Today I lost my voice after trying to scream at Debbie and her shite map reading and ripped a vocal chord. Hi, We've found a place to live in a place called Wilston about 4km north of Brisbane. Quite upmarket apparently. Or rather it was till we moved there. It's a 3 bed townhouse with three shitters so I'm never too far from the dunny which is no bad thing with my arse. Debbie got her old car back from her sister and I got one for myself so we're looking after the planet well. I started work this week and it's very busy. I did 2 days of training and then flew to Sydney for a 3 day thing at the Hunter Valley which is a wine region. Perth next week and Tasmania the week after so it's quite full on, but good. Jason. Wally has his nads in the sink most days trying to cool down. 11

12 Light up the Sky st & 2nd the NorthHants Buggy field Cliddesden Contact Roy Martin at luts2008@northhantsbuggy.org.uk Festival 09 Come along to the Jolly Farmer at 8pm on the 15th October to have your say on next years festival Things on the agenda, Committee + idea s for next years theme. Alan 12