Story Starter: No Kite Flying!

I’ve never seen a sign like this before, have you? No kite flying. Seems like a story starter to me….

Now, is it a metaphor? For something seemingly harmless that you’re not allowed to do? Petty rules?

I know why the sign’s there, of course. Do you want me to tell you? Have a guess?

Dundee has an airport. It used to be called Riverside Airstrip, and is built on reclaimed land. One runway. It’s an airport that sees one commercial flight a day to Stansted, one from….We did used to fly to Jersey. And last year we briefly had a daily flight to Amsterdam. I managed to get that one before it was grounded, which was just so exciting. To fly over my house. To fly over our glorious River Tay and our magnificent bridges. To land in my own city. To be home within fifteen minutes of our baggage coming off the luggage carousel. But now it’s Stansted or nothing.

Kite Strings And Propellors

However, there is a very busy flying school. My lunchtime walks are punctuated by light aircraft circling overhead and doing what my dad always called circuits and bumps: landing then immediately taking off again. And I guess that’s the reason for the sign. Don’t want trailing kite strings snarling up the propellors.

There’s something special about sitting on one of the benches in the park to the left there and having the planes’ shadows ripple over. It gives me a wee prickle at the back of the neck; makes me think of wartime airfields and scanning the skies for safe returns.

But can I just say I don’t actually want wartime stories? It’s still a popular and, dare I say, over-represented period. Actually I read a good story last week that took the traditional wartime story and placed it against a Vietnam War backdrop instead. That worked well.

Anyway, kites, planes, signs on lamp-posts….It’s over to you to see what your fertile imaginations make of this week’s pic.