And there the kite sat, gently mocking us.....

It was decided by way of discussion and agreement, that the tree was of suitable thickness and the branches, carefully considered, would hold the weight of one of us, should one of us climb the tree, up several branches and then work our way out along the kite-clutching limb to free the kite. But which of us? The height of the first available branch was taller than any of us could directly reach or could reach if standing on the shoulders of the tallest of us. I have already mentioned that I was short, well, so was the rest of the family. Our mother towered at 5 feet, 1 inch (perhaps 2inches) and we were all that height… or shorter. This could have been a contributing factor in us possessing that wonderful apparatus of exercise and entertainment, stilts.

I must again digress and explain why I mention the stilts. Now the stilts we possessed at the time (more about other stilts will be followed in a later blog), were the traditional 4 ft long square timber length with right angled narrow steps, a ‘step up’ from the base. You would stand on the wedge and the extension of timber would be tucked in under your arms. You would try to maintain your feet on the small narrow step as you climbed up, stepped, staggered, wobbled and sometimes hopped, dramatically, in a variety of speeds, in a straight line (if possible) as you generally overbalanced forward and pitched towards the earth. Several attempts (and falls) later you got fairly good at bouncing along with short steps at about a third the speed of the average elderly walker with a frame.

But it was very satisfying to achieve the motion. And then, once a few falls on cement had occurred you moved to something softer. For example, when used in a grassy field all was great! You could almost race along, until you hit a soft patch or a rabbit hole and one stilt disappeared up to the base of the wedge step, leaving you standing lopsided until the original forward momentum you had achieved re-asserted its control and you spin sideways off the stuck stilt. There are so many ways to fall, and generally the ground doesn’t get softer. Don’t ever raise the argument that physics doesn’t help outside of the classroom. It would probably have helped prevent at least 98% of our various injuries over if we had been taught applied physics and the real importance of its application in year two of school.     (continued tomorrow)