33 Week Challenge Week 16: Make a kite that flies

The ancient art of kite making and flying is a beautiful thing. Before anyone ever worked out and recorded the physics and mathematics that go into making such a little thing fly so high, people worked that shit out in their heads and flew kites anyway.

It’s like when I was trying (badly) to do maths at school, and we were talking about parabolas. All these intense formulas and equations to work out parabolas, but anyone who has ever caught a ball as it comes down, knows how to intuitively calculate a parabola. Were the ancient kite makers the same? I’m genuinely asking, I haven’t done any research or anything. But did they just intuitively know how light and how strong a kite should be? Was it trial and error working out where the cross pieces should go? And those kites that look like dragons and stuff… amazing!

So, do you remember 2 blogs ago I said “next week I’m going to make a kite”? I note no one picked me up on it when I posted the knitting blog. “A scarf is not a kite”, not a single one of you uttered, “where the fuck is my kite?”, none of you said. Well, I *did* actually go out and buy all the things needed to make a kite. I now shop so regularly at the Mitre 10 up the street that the shop assistant there recognises me. We passed each other in Coles last week, he said hi. Anyway, I told him what I wanted to do and we discussed the relative merits of yarn over fishing line (I bought both…) and then I waited. It was Ekka week. Everyone who’s ever spent more than 2 years in Brisbane knows: it gets hella windy during Ekka week. Every year without fail. Until this year. Fail. There was a public holiday in the middle of the week, a perfect day, I thought, to make and fly a kite. But instead, it was kind of dreary and overcast and I decided to knit instead. It didn’t really ever get windy, and the drizzle turned to rain.

~But would I let my bloggeroos down? Hell no. I made a damn kite anyway. Now, I don’t know SHIT about maths or physics, and the whole idea completely daunted me, but for you, dear readers, I persisted. I found a website, I did the maths, I fucked it up and I tried again. I made a beautiful fucking kite, and then today… there was a slight gustiness to the air. ‘Could this be the day?’ I thought. I ventured out with my beautiful new kite. I went into New Farm park, and muttering, “screw what the couple making out on the grass think of me” I ran like a small child until my kite took flight. It tried to resist, but I knew best… and then. Then we were flying.

Here is a photo of my awesome kite:

Haha! That’s right. I’m a big fat liar. Everything from the ~ on is a big, fat lie. Remember how I said I would never lie to you? Yeah, that was a lie too. I do actually really want to do this challenge, but my life is really getting away from me at the moment. So many things! So many colds! So much TV to watch! I think I might like to write some other things on this too. Don’t worry – I’ll still be writing challenge blogs every Monday (even if I have to lie to get them done) but maybe later in the week sometimes I shall write about other things I think of, if I think of them.

When I do get around to making the kite, you shall all be the first to know. There is a massive piece of dowel in my room, as well as a small saw and all sorts of other bits and pieces, they shall glare at me until it is done. And I mean, when a saw is glaring at you in your own bedroom, you make the damn kite.

I had to cover my face. It's quite late. The zombie face has come out. Also, if you look really carefully, Disney characters are doing terrible things to each other in the picture behind me.