Tonbridge Kite Festival

The first Sunday in June, and sure enough the kite festival could be found on Tonbridge Sports Ground - as run by my husband Andy with lots of help from all our friends and family.

As the misty morning cleared, the wind gradually increased, until there was enough to get some really beautiful kites in the sky.

This one is hand made by a flyer from Chatham - very pretty!

Andy & our friend Henry set themselves a target of getting 100 kites in the air on one string and here is the result!

It looked fantastic flying, and kept twisting about as if to show off its beauty - and there really were 100 kites on the string!

There were lots of other kites too:

and some support from All Good Fun and Wacky Faces, who kindly turned Andy into The Thing!

At 3pm the heavens opened, and everyone hurtled for cover. We gathered very soggily under a gazebo but there was no going on.

Since then the house has been full of drying kites and you can barely cross the living room! Still - we had a great day - really successful with some fantastic kites. Let's hope next year is even better!

River days

It's the long weekend, and the weather has been - well changeable, with some lovely sunshine. Planted a few more veg on Sunday morning (more photos soon) although the slugs have feasted on my lupins again - really I am never going to see them bloom! Before I progress to the main excitement of the weekend, a couple of cool discoveries: a Canadian who sends out great posts to remind you to love life, be creative etc - here's the link Jamie Ridler Studios and an interesting artist I've found through Jamie's website - Leah Piken Kilidas especially Key to Winter (I love the winter so this one really speaks to me!) and Lantern - sometimes life feels just like this!

Anyway, the main excitement has been CANOEING!!!!! Andy has had to sell his glider, so we went straight to the canoe shop after waving the glider goodbye! Kent Canoes have been really fantastic - at the moment we're borrowing a Easky 15 kayak, and a Wenonah Argosy solo canadian canoe. This apparent unmatched pair has come about because Andy likes to paddle kayaks with a double ended paddle (below) and I love the slow pace of a single paddle and the open canadian (photos of that one soon!).

 Andy's finding his water balance

It has been heaven to be paddling along the watery ways of the Medway. Your pace of life just calms right down. Today we saw a grey heron just 1.5m away, which took off as we drew level - my favourite bird.

The Easky paddles well, but needs a bit of ballast to stabilise it. You use your knees to help turn, but I couldn't get the hang of that at all. Still Andy's happy, so I think this one will be for him - in orange of course!

The Argosy paddles as smooth as coffee through the flat water, but it is quite tippy -  and I can't help feeling on faster water I would end up out of the boat a bit too frequently! It's fine as long as you stay central and nothing happens too quickly - but I can't see that being the case beyond our sedate stretch of the Medway. Also, the ol' ankle wound is a bit uncomfy being knelt on (which is best for boat stability). Still it paddles like a dream and that's quite a strong temptation .... so watch this space for an update. Anyway, here's a quick pic of my attempts to paddle Andy's kayak, and one of the cat too (who may be coping better!) More pics soon. x A