Dieppe 2008
No Comments »Phew - finished the kite on Wednesday morning, delaying leaving for the South Coast by about an hour or so, and finally headed off towards Eastbourne where we had a Travelodge booked for the night before catching the Newhaven to Dieppe Ferry on Thursday morning.
Checked in, then went in search of petrol and an evening meal, and having easily found the first we ended up heading up to Beachy Head. We had an excellent meal at the pub at Beachy Head, served by the most friendly, helpful waitress we have met for some time, watching the sunset from the restaurant window, and then spent some time outside in the moonlight (a lovely warm clear evening) looking at the marble compass inlaid into the grass pointing out the direction to Dieppe.
The next morning we were off to the ferry for a 9.30am sailing, boarded with no problems, watching several veteran cars doing the same, and arrived in Dieppe early afternoon to quite a dull afternoon weather-wise. We were just about to head out to say hello to some club members on the field after checking in at the hotel, but the weather thought otherwise and the showers took over! The rest of the afternoon was spent swapping stories, jokes and cups of tea in John and Val’s room with them, Diane and Scott and Dave and Rosie. Dave showed us some amazing video footage he shot at Bristol Kite Festival of a huge team of Revs doing a breathtakingly clever and impressive display.
The evening was dry, but the rain had started again by the next morning so we had a look round Dieppe town, doing some shopping for drinks and nibbles for the weekend, and having a cup of coffee under cover when the rain got worse. Fortunately it cleared up nicely for the Friday afternoon and I got to launch the star kite I had spent time working on. After a quick repair following damaged incurred during its test flight at home, and a couple of small adjustments, it flew very well so all in all a successfull day. The rain had also give us a good opportunity to look at the indoors displays and play at some of the silly games inside one of the marquees. Also got to have a chat with Karl Longbottom who is running a workshop for our club which I am unfortunately unable to attend - he was nice enough to agree to put together a kit to make the kite outside of the workshop so I won’t lose out entirely and hopefully will be able to make a nice swan shaped kite later this year.
The weather continued to improve over the weekend, Saturday and Sunday both being particularly warm. Some more quality flying time with the Star kite, some sightseeing up at La Castille - with an excellent view over the Dieppe seafront on the whole of the kite festival and a lot of time sat in the field chatting with fellow club members. A night out on Friday at the official festival meal provided some interest with some amazing indoor kite flying and some very odd oversized puppets. Saturday nights entertainment was provided by some night flying where I flew my Dot Electra delta kite with LEDS on it, and we watched some formation night flying on another field, and a strange remote control “aircraft” with fireworks on the beach.
My highlights? well they would have to be….
- finding out that the star kite flies extremely stabily and getting lots of compliments on it.
- all the various meals out with the club, and getting to chat over some good food in various restaurants with people I don’t see often enough (my fault)
- camembert bread and frites for Saturday lunch, washed down with Normandy cider!
- going to the dinner on saturday night - an excuse to dress up and drink too much - making it home on the bendy bus still in my platform boots without falling over - squashing too many people in the lift back up to our rooms!
- french cakes - need I say more!
- learning how to explain about LEDS and batteries on kites in French on saturday night and actually having people understand me!
- making windmills out of coke bottles in the kids workshop with Diane after whistle stop instruction by a lovely french guy with limited english! Just call us big kids!!
Not such good points - only a few I can think of….
- breaking the star kite (its ok, we can fix it…) luckily not until Sunday afternoon, when another kite brought it down and I snapped a couple of spars when I let it go back up.
- my “window” of sky being stolen by three formation delta flyers during the night flight, ending with getting tangled with one of them and crashing down.
- the usual one - coming home again!!!
The festival officially finished at the end of flying on Sunday, but our ferry back to England wasn’t leaving until 6.30pm on Monday, so we had some time to kill - this was actually one of my favourite parts of the holiday, just chilling on the beach, doing our own thing, mainly watching Scott, Dave and Dick flying fighter kites, with Val and Diane having a go too. Colin & Jenny met us there too, also Jill flew her “kite” kite (kite as in the bird), and Diane a very colourful single liner, and Rosie her tiny but very pretty fairy kite (which at one point made a bid for freedom). My Hoffman circle box came out for a fly as well - hadn’t been out during the festival as the emphasis there is for special or hand made kites and the Hoffman is an off the shelf one - still pretty though, and I also got the chance to practice some patterns with my black delta. All in all a very relaxed day with a sandwich, cake and cider for lunch, and no worry about tangling anyone’s lines!
All too soon time to catch the ferry and we all said our goodbyes to the flying fields as we could see them as we left the harbour, watching the sun set on the way home.
Loads of photos, and some video to follow later too.
