Saturday, March 10, 2007

Pride comes before a ....

Today Dad came over to continue the work on the wooden floor. We did all we could at the floor, and then headed over to the field with the kites. After a quick tutorial Dad had the hang of flying my toy 2.5m Ultrafit kite. He was even launching backwards and everything.

It seemed to be another of those perfect days, nice steady winds, not too gusty. I was having fun with my 4m buster too, and getting some good jumps in, not too high, more long - just how I wanted them (not so far to fall).

The wind picked up a bit, and it only took a few jumps to get dangerously close to the trees, and I had to let go of the handles and let the kite-killers do their work several times, the kite often landing closer to the trees than I had expected.

It was beginning to get a little gusty, but I was having too much fun to notice, and so came the mother of all gusts. You know how when an accident is in progress everything slows down, and you can see every detail in slow motion, just with an inability to control it. Well, that's not how this was.

It was over instantly.

One second I was happily flying, jumping, running etc and later that same second I was getting up off the ground, having been launched forward, so dramatically that my feet went into the air, I landed on my face, then shoulder, rolled over my arm onto my other side, and skidded to rest on my leg. Due to the rolling nature of my fall I had also landed on the lines of the kite, so I instantly got off them, and got up, in case they would make me into cheese.

I don't think the photo Kate took does me justice, but it does show how dirty my leg got.

A valuable lesson learned. Picking up the Kite (I will now address it with a capital 'K' out of respect) I tried again, and learned to let go of the handles instantly when I felt a big tug. Can't wait to get back out again :)

1 comment:

That Hideous Man said...

We hope to see many more such humorous sights when we are next visiting you :-))