Yesterday when driving past Stanmer Park on the way to Freya’s party we noticed the Kite Festival was on. We first happened upon it 4 years ago in much the same way when we were driving past to go somewhere else. I thought it was 2 years ago, but decided it could have been 3, only to discover checking back on my blog it was 4!
My hair is a bit shorter now but I was wearing that same jacket again today!
Davies on the other hand does appear to have grown in the last four years!
So this morning Ady and Scarlett went off to the car boot sale. The idea is anyone who is up by about 8am gets to go. Frankly I’m over car boot sales anyway so the appeal of buying other peoples tat for 50p or staying in bed in a quiet house for an extra hour is never going to be a tough choice to make. Davies tends to go more for my way of thinking too :). So he and I had a leisurely hour together once I’d got up, put away a load of clean washing and gone to wake him up too. We watched Gladiators and he ate cheerios while I drank tea :). Ady and Scarlett bumped into Julie the Badger leader and went round the car boot sale with her. They came back with a couple of books. Davies and I nipped up to Sainsburys for picnic food and then we all headed off to Stanmer Park together.
Scarlett was wearing a dress we got cheap the other day because I’d liked the colour but actually the design and the colour on her made it look like some sort of nurses or careworkers uniform. Adding a cardigan to it today because it was cold seemed to enhance that look – it was horrible :(. She won’t be wearing that again!
The weather was rather threatening but it never actually did rain and a couple of times the sun broke through and it was lovely. Davies and Scarlett made their own kites;
which actually flew really well 🙂 Davies had a great time with his for ages and I managed to get some impressive loops and twists out of it – not bad for an old cut up carrier bag and some bamboo barbecue skewers 😉
Sadly it went the way so many kites have gone before and got caught in a tree. But it knew the good times, it felt the wind in it’s recycled video tape tail, it had the glory of making a small boy smile with the joy of the next best thing to flying himself! Davies was wobbly but brave about it all.
We sat and lunched next to the arena where a constant show was on of various things. They did an Indian fighting kite display a la Kite Runner, choreographed flying to music, an amazing display of two kites with really long tails flown to ‘Windmills of your mind’ which was just stunning, a fab display by one man simulataneously flying 3 kites to Barcelona (which Davies listened to a few bars of having never heard it before and then said ‘this sounds like Queen’ :lol), various stunt and trick kites and my personal favourite of one man in a buggy and another on a board kite surfing with all sorts of cool moves.
They then called in the first 30 children, of which Davies and Scarlett were among the first five :lol:, which was great until they then wanted a few adults too and I got called in aswell :). They did a huge parachute game to music which was actually quite fun – and all the children got sweets too.
and we all took a bow at the end!
Then the children who had made kites all got to take them into the arena and fly them. Davies was very brave about having already lost his and came to help Scarlett fly hers. They gave some prizes for best flying technique but as Scarlett (and actually even Davies) hasn’t really moved past running very fast with it she didn’t win anything!
We had one last wander round the stalls selling kites and then watched the giant kites being flown before heading for home.
I cooked ham in coke while the children had a bath and watched youtube videos with Ady of bubble blowing. We’d been talking about the man who blew cube bubbles and smoke filled bubbles yesterday and managed to find some videos of him to show them. We all ate, I read another pile of stories and then it was bedtime.
Scarlett fell asleep pretty quick but when I got out of the bath Ady and I followed beautifully written signs and arrows up the stairs to Davies’ bedroom for ‘Christmas Songs’. He told us where the nearest fire exit was, alerted us to the first aid kit should we need it and then sat on a little chair and sang along to a musical book ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’. Totally out of season, he (rather amusingly) said ‘great stockings we bring’ instead of ‘glad tidings’ and clearly a bed avoidance tactic but it brought tears to my eyes just the same ;). Lovely child!
It’s been a lovely weekend 🙂