Washed Out ... Again

Well, what a washout !!  Sat on the beach for 4 hours on Saturday waiting for some wind whilst dodging the showers.  The Scottish Power Kite association weather curse appears to have continued into the new season.

So no racing on Saturday and Sunday dawned with no wind, light rain and FOG to boot.  Although the fog cleared, the rain set in and racing was cancelled.

A long way to go for a meal on Saturday evening !!

Standing about in the rain !!

Well it's been a fine week with good wind and warm sunshine, but it's now the first race day and guess what ... everyone is building buggies and getting ready, but look, here comes the rain !!

I think Ruairidh actually looks releaved.  Is it going to be another say of hanging around ??

SPKA Race Event 01 : 2011/2012

Well, we're off on our travels again.  This time it's to the North East (top right) corner of Scotland and Fraserburgh.  Don't know who Fraser was, but he must be very rich to own a whole burgh.

It's the first race of the new season and my companion is competing this year.  He was going to last year but chickened out at the last minute.  He says he's grown bigger Kahoona's this time but I don't know what fruit has got to do with it !!

Anyhow, he had a site visit in Aberdeen today, so we packed the van last night and hit the road early this morning.  The race isn't until Saturday, so we're a little early.  Hope to enjoy a quite beach tomorrow before the rest of the bunch arrive on Friday evening.

Over for another year

Well, that's the European Kite Championship over and done with.  After a final day of racing, which was unfortunately cut short by someone taking a ride in a big yellow helicopter ... the hu-mans had a party that went on till the early hours of the morning before all heading home.

Someone did manage to catch my hu-man making dunny faces whilst standing about waiting for a race ...

Not sure why he seemed to have multiple radios around his neck though.

I did over hear some say it was the last time he let my hu-man walk his wife home !! Not sure what they were on about, but I must have a word ...

Everyone appeared to enjoy themselves, despite the poor conditions and they're already talking about the start of the new season with a weekend in somewhere called Fraserburgh.  It's like football, just as you think it's all over for another year, it's all go again for the new season.

All the photographs can be seen here.

Flickr Photo gallery 

Finally some decent racing ...

Race Day 3

Well today dawned another wet day, this time with fairly light winds.  After last nights celebrations for someone called 'Ped's birthday (that's a stupid name), there were some bleary eyes at the breakfast table.

Following more rain over night the beach was again soaking wet, and the pits a lake again.  This time the race marshall considered the risk of aquaplaning on standing water to be too great, so racing was abandoned for the morning and lunch called early.

After lunch, a little sun and steady breeze helped dry the course and although the pits remained wet, it was agreed dry enough to start a race.

2 races were held over a long course, with long broad reaches in both an upwind leg and downwind leg and some tights short legs at the windward end.  The Scottish team appeared to have mixed performance and struggled for kite choices.  However, Maggie from Synergy Kitesports put in a stellar performance in race 1 and 2, using various sizes of Yaks (borrowed from my Hu-man !!) and achieved a VERY credit worth 6th and 5th place in the races.  This put her in overall 5th position for the day.

Well done Maggie ... 

Hoping for some fair weather tomorrow for some good racing on the final day.

Race Day 02

Well, after lots of waiting about, the second day of,racing finally got underway.  With the beach much drier than yesterday racing finally got under way following a pilot's briefing at 10:30am this morning and a 15 minute prep.  A 45 minute race saw some good racing through out the field.   I think some Sportsman called Dangerous Bob took top honours amongst our team, but everyone enjoyed the race, despite various kite issues.

One of the team even managed to destroy a marker, no guessing who!! and took out the flag, cone, marker board, as well as the Marshall (Ruairidh), a Jury member and photographer in the proces.  Well executed Mr Buggy...

With excellent timing the heavens opened as the first race finished, resulting in wet beach and early lunch.

The afternoon saw a second race in strong winds.  Following a false start and restart, a hour long race saw a good performance from the team, without racers settling in.  Again Dangerous Bob took top honours in the team, coming 44th overall.  Everyone appeared to enjoy themselves.

Hoping for more racing tomorrow.

First day of racing !!

We'll it seems like this European championship thing involves an awful lot of standing about waiting and not much racing....

We met up with some of the others on the drive down on Sunday.  The convoy was goof but a bit frustrating for my driver, as someone ahead didn't seem to have cruise control and then took us through the 'nicer' parts of Liverpool ... I was a little worried about wheels overtime we stopped at traffic lights!!

Afterthehu-man went out for a few beers on Sunday night with his fellows, we watched everyone have their buggy being weighed yesterday.  This seemed to include hoisting each person on some kind of contraption contraption bill from bits of tubing and rope.  I think the idea was to see who could fall the furthest/hardest but my companion says they were testing the Quick-release system, what ever that is. This all seemed to take forever and there wand't even any sites flown.

My companion has been ropes into being a Marshall, oh well at least he gets fed and water.  Less I'll have to cook!!

Racing should start tomorrow.

European Chamionships

Right, the van has been packed, the human has stripped down his buggy and loaded INSIDE my lovely van.  I hope he cleans up after himself.

We're off to the European Kite Buggy Championships (2011) in the morning.

http://www.parakartassociation.co.uk/euros.html 

Should be an amazing sight to see 70+ kiters on one beach.  I hope they can manage to avoid tangling too many lines, though a few crossed lines might make for a good Candid Camera moment ;-)

Will try and remind the hu-man to upload some phones from the event and keep you up to date with the latest news and results.

Visiting the Vikings

Hi, sorry about the lack of updates recently but there's been little time over the winter. Recently Roors took me on a little holiday to the Outer Hebrides. We took the van north for a week of R&R in the Isle of Lewis and Harris.

Sunday evening saw us on a great campsite in the town of Ullapool. Right on the shores of Loch Broom, with views down the loch to the summer isles.

Next morning saw us queuing up for the morning ferry. Lots of other vans and lorries but our is definitely the coolest !! and yes I am in the photo somewhere.

Whilst Roors headed off for a Calmac cooked breakfast, I blagged a comfy seat for the crossing.

Fortunately, the American navy didn't mistake our ferry for an Al' Qaeda suicide boat ... ... I think the black and white paint scheme and words CALMAC.co.uk painted down the side helped !!

Having survived the close encounter with the boys from the US Navy, we arrived in Stornoway and immediately headed west (head west my boy, head west.) to find a campsite.

The beaches are amazing, with white sand that stretches for miles and clear blue/turquoise water. The campsite is set amounts the dune to the right of this photo. What's more, there wasn't another camper/tourist in sight, so we had this beautiful place to ourselves.























After a VERY wind night, when at times the van felt like it would blow over, we were rudely awoken by the sound of hail-stone bouncing off the side of the van !!



















Finally met the neighbours !!

A bit of Gardening

Sorry I've not been blogging much recently. The hu-man has recently decided to have some work done in the garden. Watched the other peeple struggle in the rain all week, so thought I'd lend a hand .....

Getting through all that muck was hard work on my little legs, but the digger was a lot of fun.

Power Kiting at St. Andrew's

Well, the hu-man and myself took a trip to the seaside yesterday in St. Andrew's. The hu-man wanted to have a go a something called a power kite. It was very sunny, so I had to wear my sunglasses to protect my sensitive eyes from the sun.

The 'Power Kite' seems to be a big kite that humans hang onto and either just get bragged about the beach or get pulled along in some sort of buggy/board.

Whilst, the hu-man tried the kite/buggy things, I relaxed and enjoyed the rays.

Sorry about the Mercedes van in the background.

It looked fun, so I thought I'd try the buggy.

Must say, I think I was better than the hu-man, as he kept skidding sideways and even ended up going backwards several times.

All very funny. Oh, this is our Instructor, Owain from Tractionkiting.co.uk, he could do JUMPS

A great day out, but the hu-man is now talking about buying more toys ...... the wallet isn't going to be happy .......... again.

Road Trip

The hu-man had to make a trip for Work to somewhere called Bolton. So, since it has been such lovely weather, I decided it would be a good idea to accompany him on a little road trip. It was going to be a long trip, he said it was about 400 miles, what ever they are, so I thought it would a good idea to take the van, as it's far more comfortable than his other vehicle.

We set off early to beat the morning traffic, the signs on the motorway seemed to be telling the hu-man something.

Not that I'm suggesting anything but .....

The views out the window were fantastic, but did find the flies hitting the windscreen a bit scarey at 70mph (honest).

We slipped over 'the border' without being stopped. Thought we might have to show our passports or something.

Finally made it Bolton. Appears that the hu-man had driven all this way to look at a couple of doors. Now, admittedly they were VERY BIG doors, but why drive 3-4 hours just to look at a door. He's got plenty in his house as it is, and anyway these would fit !!

He said they were for a client who needed some really BIG doors in case things exploded. sounds scarey !!

On the way home we spotted this little car. It was about the right size for me, but don't fancy putting a bike on that rack. the car might do a wheelie .....

Finally made it all the way back to Scotland. Just in case anyone was in any doubt, they appear to have left a rather large size to remind you.

They appear to have moved the border south by a few hundred yards. Maybe they won't notice until we've conquered Carlisle ..........

What's in the boxes

I see what was in all those boxes now. The Hu-man I stay with has spent the last two nights, assembling the bits that were in all those boxes into bigger boxes, that he calls cupboards. They're for storing his stuff in.
















I tried to help as much as I could, but he didn't seem to be having much fun especially when he discovered he hadn't 'bought' all the right parts during our trip to the big house that contained all the furniture.
















He's not happy as he now needs to go back to get for bits.
















The Hu-man is currently upstairs assembling more bits. It can't be going well as I can hear loud banging and I think a drill !! So I've sneaked on to his compooter do a bit of surfin'

Something called D I Y ...

Well, the person that my hu-man calls his sister has been nagging him about sorting out all his 'stuff ' that he just leaves lying around the house.  So since it's been pouring down with rain all weekend he finally decided to take a trip to somewhere called  I K E A.

  

It appears to be huge blue and yellow building that the peoples seem to flock to in large numbers.  They drive there in their metal boxes, some of these look a bit like my hu-man's T5 but others are a lot smaller.  I prefer my hu-mans, 'cos it's cool.

Inside, there appears to be lot's of rooms.  It looks kinda like a very BIG house, but I don't understand why anyone would need to live in such a big building.  The peoples just seemed to wander around looking at stuff.  We didn't meet the peoples who actually lived there, but he had some peoples called 'staff'. They wore yellow shirts.  Some of the big peoples seemed to be arguing and kept on telling the little peoples to 'stop doing that' or 'come here'.  All they seemed to be doing was following the arrows on the floor and occasionally note down some numbers with little pencils.

Once my hu-man had noted down several of these numbers on his bit of paper, we finally entered a huge area with lots of boxes stacked on top of each other.  My hu-man put several of these boxes on a trolley.  These seemed have the numbers he had noted down before on them.  He then took all the boxes to a nice lady.

I helped the hu-man put all the boxes in the back of my T5.

This appeared far more sensible than some of the peoples, who were trying to attached large items to the tops of there small metal boxes.  Why don't they all drive T5's, it would much simpler.

I don't know what's in all these boxes but they were heavy.  It all seems to be an huge effort for a pile of cardboard boxes. 

After our trip to the I K E A.   I relaxed on the couch and played with my PSP.

My favourite games is called Lego Starwars, I especially like the EWOKs.  They are like me and if it wasn't for them, the other people would be in a lot of trouble....