I've never murdered anyone, yet somehow, in Dunstable this year, I sentenced myself to hard labour in the broiling sun.

It was an early start. Shona decided that 5:00am was a fine time to get up on a Sunday morning, so I was up and out early, arriving on site at around 7:30am. It was clearly going to be a belter of a day, with blue skies and a gentle morning zephyr rolling up the hill. I took a punt that the faint wind direction discernable would be the vector delivered throught the day and went down to the bottom of the hill to position my anchors.

Three anchors points, each with two stakes. I've not had a chance for breakfast yet and already I've driven six yards of cold steel into the landscape. Because Dunstable is close to Luton Airport and just above the gliding club, they are only able to arrange 500' of height clearance so I measure out 200' of flying line, leaving 300' for the Pilots because it looks like a light wind day. Battling through the long grass, it's 10:30 before luck, judgement and wind convene to launch all three kites into the air.

Andrew attempting a launch

In a moment of complete stupidity in the early morning, I had suggested that if the wind died, I would be willing to walk a kite through the arena. So, sure enough, the call came across the PA.
I took the lightest Pilot off the Manta and the Icarex Octopus and dragged them through the grass, the secondary arena and the audience into the main arena. Now, I might have stood half a chance if I could have anchored the pilot to the Octopus and done a long line launch, but to do that, I would have had to have launched the Pilot through the audience, the banners, the trade stands and most of the car park. I didn't have enough wind to fly the pilot solo, let alone feed line out to it to get it into position. So, we struggled. Five times we got the head inflated and ran down the hill, four times we failed with a collapsed heap of fabric on the floor.

It's hard to explain the physical effort involved in doing this... Imagine an adult standing on a sledge, on the grass. Your job is to pull the sledge for 50 yards while ensuring that you pull smoothly enough that the passenger doesn't fall off. Now do it in the mid-day heat. And repeat five times.

It was hard labour, but when Veronica did finally get completely inflated and her tentacles clear of the ground, the response of the audience was rapturous.

Spurred on by the success and the willingness of Team Spectrum and BKF to assist, I went and dragged Anuj the Gecko from the long grass, laid him out in the top corner of the field and set about pre-inflating him. We spent a long time filling with air, and getting ready while the Flying Squad did their best to do some impromptu quad flying in the passing thermals. They were really cool, not complaining when they caught a Quad in the Pilot line, then when the winning gust came, they downed kites and let us take our chance to get the green monster into the sky for an energetic 60 seconds.

By this time the heat and the exhaustion was getting the better of me, so I went to sit in the shade of the St John's Ambulance canopy for a while. I had been drinking lots of fluid all day but I still felt that I had been overdoing it. Washing my face in the melted ice-water in my cool box was pleasantly refreshing and I started to relax, thinking that my arena slot was over.

But no, my name came over the tannoy again. There was a TV crew on site and they wanted something to film. This time, a successful launch and another run down the hill.

Veronica the Octopus

Back to the long grass to see if I can get the Manta flying. But I can't find my Dave Arnold pilot. I look for it for a while, ploughing through the long grass, but before long they announce that they are having a single line display in the main arena, all invited fliers are encouraged to participate.

For once, there is sufficient wind to fly and Veronica launches without incident, only tickling a teddy bear on the way up but this brings a new problem - I'm flying the octopus and the pilot just by holding the bare line in my hand. Team Spectrum come to the rescue once more and fish out a padded handle.

We take advantage of the late afternoon breeze to give the Gecko another crack and manage to fly it for several minutes before clearing for the Robertshaw brothers to do their team Blade display.

The event officially closed at 5pm, but there was much to pack away. Some new fliers helped me with the Manta, and some members of the public were recruited to help stuff the Octopus and Gecko, but the real crunch came with the anchors. Six 1m bars to be extracted from deep in the chalk hillside. I felt too weak and dizzy to lift the sledgehammer, yet I had to swing it with a vengeance to loosen the grip of the rock sufficient to be able to heave the stakes from the ground. By the time I had bundled everything into the back of the van, it was 7pm when I left the site to drive home with the air-conditioning on "Max".

It was only when I was in the car, able to take my mind off the day-long focus of putting on a display for the public, that it suddenly dawned on me that no only had I missed breakfast, but the only thing that I had eaten in 24 hours was a Melon.

I had a burning desire for pasta with meat, so I pulled into the Harvester near the M1. I asked the girl at the door what they had with pasta but there was none on the menu. I think that she was relieved not to have to tell me that they wouldn't have served someone as filthy and dishevelled as me, anyway.