At Easter, when I wasn't in a good place mentally at all, my wonderful niece and nephew, Hannah and William, were over in Bexhill (along with my wonderful sister and brother-in-law (don't want them to feel left out!)) and my parents suggested we go and fly kites on the beach. We wrapped up warm and headed out.
My mum, it appeared, had somehow amassed quite a collection of kites! Hannah and William seemed content to leap around the beach attempting to fly a couple of them, gamely assisted by Nana, Gaga (Grandad...but Gaga was said and it stuck!) and Louise and Justin.
Feeling withdrawn as I was at the time, with smiling being incredibly difficult to do, I took out the last remaining kite and started unwinding the string. Fortunately no leaping around was necessary to fly this one or I would probably have given up. No...it went straight up and I took a seat on a convenient groyne and gradually let the string out.
While chaos was going on with the other members of my family (and yes Dad even got his hankerchief out to try and weight the tail of one kite in a bid to help it fly), I clearly remember sitting there letting the string of my kite out, watching it veer about, feeling the wind tug at it and feeling the wind buffet me. I felt calm and peaceful.
Cut to last week, when I was doing my weekly shop in Aldi. One of the 'special buys' available were kites and, remembering the peace I felt while flying a kite at Easter, I bought one (a multi-coloured trapezium kite I'll have you know!) and this evening, after dinner, with the wind perfect 'kite flying' wind, I met my parents down on the seafront for an obligatory ice cream (snickers flavour for me) and then a kite flying session.
The inaugural flight of my kite went without a hitch. Dad, having used his old scouting skills, tied the handle and string to the kite, and had to step sharply out of the way as the kite was eager to get going. After letting all the string out, the kite was directly above my head so, as I couldn't see it with making my neck hurt, I lay down on the beach so I could watch it.
A little girl wandered passed with her parents and spotted the kite flying high in the sky so I asked her if she'd like to have a go. She scampered over and she took the handle (my hand wasn't too far away just in case) and her little face was a picture! Mum suggested she could put it on her list for Father Christmas, and the girl seemed to think that was a good idea. How lovely!
Unfortunately, kite-flying success was not to be for my parents however and, as Hannah and William were the last people to use them, they got the blame!
By the time they'd got all the knots out, Mum declared she was 'freezing' so they went home!
I, on the other hand, walked back along the beach with the kite still flying high and only wound it back in when I turned off the beach the head home.
What a nice way to spend a summer's evening!
