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Amphibian kites

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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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    Posted: 26 Mar 2016 at 2:12pm
Hello folks,

I chanced by some sort of kite enthusiast gathering on a local common recently. It seemed to (mainly) have an aquatic - particularly marine - theme to it, and there were lots of other passers-by pulling up to take photos of the spectacular and very colourful kites.

Think this is supposed to be a newt?





another herp 'exhibit' was this frog






squid, mermaid, miscellaneous other airborne aquatics etc....
















And a bizarre, huge pair of legs and torso (nothing from the waist up). The legs 'swam' in the wind like a diver exploring a reef:





Edited by Liz Heard - 25 Nov 2017 at 5:39pm
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Suzy View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Suzy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Mar 2016 at 11:13pm
How interesting. Looks like the sort of hobby where you might spend some time untangling your lines if you weren't careful!
Suz
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Tom Omlette View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tom Omlette Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Mar 2016 at 12:02am
lol brilliant
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GemmaJF View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GemmaJF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Nov 2017 at 10:07pm
Shame pictures no longer there? Would loved to have seen them.

Secret hobby of mine, my mum got me started when I was little, making kites out of bamboo sticks and brown paper. Carried it on for a life time, have a large collection, most built by myself Smile

Do have to watch for the tangled lines Suz, main reason I rarely go fly them these days, dogs off of leads. People just leave their dogs to attack the kites that can take hours or even days or weeks to make. Sad but hard to find anywhere isolated enough to enjoy it these days. Perhaps these organised events would be worth a try. Then you get the people who can't figure there must be a line (or two) between the kite and the person flying it... ...yep walk straight into your lines. They have no clue a kite line can cause a serious burn or even worse if it is kevlar kite string on a modern stunt kite!

Shame because it is such a simple and relaxing thing to do. Back in the '80s I could go fly a stunt kite in a London park and nobody would walk between the kite and and me, most would just stop and watch for a while, now people are totally clueless!
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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Liz Heard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 2017 at 10:13am
Hi Gemma,

Yes, it is a shame and i feel very aggrieved about it. I'm afraid Photobucket are holding all my pictures to ransom. They've changed their pricing so now, to update for 3rd party sharing, they want hundreds of pounds for a year - money i don't have.
When i get a minute i'll see if i still have them somewhere and re-post.
Apologies!

The 'kite festival' takes place a couple of times each year on Minchinhampton Common, so assuming some of the same kites reappear, there may be a another chance to photograph them - possibly with some new ones.
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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Liz Heard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 2017 at 10:16am

Meantimes, here's a large, wooden scultpure of a GCN from Robinswood Hill, Gloucester (Glos WL Trust's base)



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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Liz Heard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 2017 at 7:30pm
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Suzi View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Suzi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Nov 2017 at 6:14pm
Photos have now reappeared!
My Dad was a kite enthusiast. He used to make them out of brown paper and lengths of wood that came in boxes of daffodils (and probably other flowers). This was when I was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s. He may have been making them from his own youth. He had such a length of string on a stick (his reel as it were) that the kites would go up into the clouds. I presume the clouds were low! The pull on the string was fantastic. We lived in a fairly quiet part of the Lake District so there were good places for flying them and another place was on the seashore near Blackpool. We would walk back to his parents after a spell on the beach and Dad would arrive ages later as he had to wind all his string in to get the kite down. He walked as he wound to save time. Happy days.
Suz
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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Liz Heard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Nov 2017 at 6:19pm
Hi Suzi.
Those do indeed sound like happy days. I think i tried kite flying a couple of times but couldn't get on with it. However, like you, much of my childhood was spent outside. We used to walk down the hill to a local factory and collect giant pieces of cardboard with which to slide down the steep banks of a nearby common on. They were as fast as a sledge once you'd levelled the grass by doing it a couple of times. Other occasions it was exploring woods and disused builings, playing tag, football or war, or off looking for slow worms, lizards, newts, frogspawn etc. My mum never knew where i was!
I'm kinda glad i grew up in the era i did. When i go to visit my parents these days (their house overlooks the common from the other side of the valley), sadly i never, ever see kids playing on the grassy knolls where i spent so many happy hours.

Edited by Liz Heard - 30 Nov 2017 at 6:34pm
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Suzi View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Suzi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Dec 2017 at 9:17pm
Well Ben I lived in Bolton until I was almost ten years old. We wandered a long way from home when playing out. There were kids everywhere playing. Parents didn't overly worry in those days. Mind you my parents did take us out into the countryside around the town when they could and, as I've mentioned on here before, my mother encouraged us by netting newts out of ponds and putting them in jam jars so we could look at them. There was lots of rough disused land with potential for encounters with nature (the places I knew are built over now). 
I think the kind of childhoods us older folk had won't come around again, sadly.
Suz
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