Easter turned out to be a really diabolical weekend weather wise and I take my hat off to all the kite flyers who stuck out the whole weekend at Brenzett for the Kite Festival. For myself, after working till 11:30 on Sunday night to finish the Tux Eyes Double Parasled, I managed to make it down to the site, not for the festival which was was on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday and was rewarded with some reasonable flying weather. However due the rain and snow which hit us around lunchtime my garage now resembles a Chinese laundry with damp kites, bags and groundsheets hanging from the rafters.

The Brenzett Aeronautical Museum is ideal for kite festivals being open a relatively free from trees and tall buildings, though not perfect being a located adjacent to the A2070 and with power lines running along the boundary with the road, thus winds from any direction other than South Westerly to Northerly would prohibit kite flying on safety grounds. Whilst the proximity of the road is a weakness, it is also a great asset. Driving down the A2070 on Monday morning I was greeted with the sight of about a dozen large kites in the air; a mix of sleds, foils and spirits.

With all this potential, hopefully the organisers will not be put off by this year’s weather and this will become a regular Easter fixture in the kiting calendar, after all this was the earliest Easter for 95 years and the earliest it can fall all but one day and next year the Easter weekend falls on the 10th-13th April so it should have better weather.

So what of the Tux Eyes Double Parasled? Well having worked late into Sunday evening to finish sewing it and only having fitted the bridle just before I left on Monday morning, it did me proud flying happily with no need for adjustment, though as with most sleds it is in need of a drogue tail to damp down oscillations across the wind. Still with a week off work I have plenty of time to get the piece`for the drogue assembled.