Thursday 19 May 2016

Streatham Common Kite Day

We flew at Streatham Common Kite Day for the first time last year, and they must have liked us, because we were asked back! Like last year, there was a very relaxed community atmosphere. The mostly sunny weather ensured that loads of people attended, with many flying their own kites around the arena.

And like last year, the wind was extremely difficult to fly in ... very light to start with, full of holes and turbulence, often turning direction up to 90 degrees in seconds, and with very little oomph even when it seemed to pick up.


Still, we did what we could, flying three slots with our new "Chariots of Fire" choreographed routine, and our 'make it up as we go along' routine to "Adiemus".


I mentioned the wind turning directions. In our second slot, the wind turned such that we couldn't hear the music from the PA anymore, and I can tell you that it is really really difficult to fly to music you can't hear!

We did go out on a high, though, because in our final routine of the day, we managed to do the double catch! I think Chris Goff was rather surprised at the ending of our routine.

Team Spectrum, our regular and loyal kite festival neighbours (they had even reserved a space for our tent next to theirs!), was also present, and they flew their usual sets of three routines (Carl flying two kites, Bryan and Carl flying pairs, and Carl flying three kites).



They also struggled a lot with the wind, and had to restart their routine more than once after the kites dropped out of the sky.

I didn't really have the opportunity to take many pictures, but a few more pictures of the day are here.

And finally, there were two tv stations present, who wanted to film the event, and interview us! First, we were interviewed by Eleanor Cunningham, of London Live. I can't seem to embed the video, but a link to the report and interview is here.


And then we were filmed and interviewed by Ben Tavener of BBC Russia for his ‪#londonблог‬. Not only that, but he also asked me to fly his self-made sled kite. As you will see in the vlog, there wasn't enough wind for me to fly it properly, and I had to reel it in from a long launch really fast to get it airborne.


An 'extra' edition features more of the actual interview:


Picture credit of us preparing and flying: Graham Webb

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