We saw the Red Sparrows!

It is my pet name for the Red Arrow's, it come's from a birthday card many years ago where I was told I would get a fly past in honour of my birthday by the Red Sparrows and there on the page were nine red sparrows in "V" formation. Well yesterday the Red Arrows were displaying at Swanage as part of Carnival week. So we went over to see them fly and made our way up the hill above Peveril Ledge to watch them. The Red Arrows main display area was over Swanage bay which is right in front of the towns beach while the hill we were standing on was on the west side of the bay about 100ft+ above sea level. In some parts of there display they overfly the hill where we were standing and it was as though you could reach up and touch them they seemed that close. On one occasion I looked back in-land just in time to see one head straight for us (heading back out to sea), I caught him on camera but the picture does little justice to how low he was when he flew over the hill. The picture I have enclosed show one on the Arrows flying back across the hill toward the town, the blob in the front of the picture is a persons head so you can see they were not that high (compared to the height you would of seen them on the beach below).

Due to the amount of traffic we encountered on our way over to Swanage we decided to take advantage of the park and ride service which is run by Swanage Railway. We parked at Norden (which is the limit of the line) which is about 1 mile past Corfe Castle. We had to pay £2 to park all day which I thought was good but the £25 return for two adults and a child I thought was a bit pricey (£27 total) I would of expected to get a refund on purchasing the train tickets for the parking. The distance is only about 6 miles from Swanage to Norden, the return journey back from Swanage to Norden was standing room only until we got to Corfe Castle. But it was enjoyable trundling along the track pulled by steam engines, including get a face full of gunk from sticking my head out the window as we traveled along. More information regarding the Swanage Railway can be found here

Finally today I got the kites out again and went for a fly, only time this week been able to, the winds all week have been climbing into the high 20's, low 30's during the afternoons. To-days flying was curtailed by rain (and my parking ticket was about to run out) so we packed up and came home, just checked the winds now and they have hit the high 20's again since we have been home. While those sorts of speeds are nice on an open beach it can be a bit lively on our little bit of grass where we fly.

Returning to my comments on Friday about "1and1", they are certainly making life difficult, first they cancel my cancellation, a badly worded button on there web site makes it look like you need to click it and then when you do you find out that you have canceled your cancellation and have to start over again. I have now re-canceled my hosting with them and my web sites are now un-contactable while they move my DNS settings which will take god know how long. It just goes to prove that cheapest is not always the best.