One of the reasons I moved to Ramsbottom with my family was for the ability to get out in the hills and woods, spend an hour or two wandering around and then come home again without ever needing to set foot in a car.
On Sunday, as the rain had stopped I decided to take advantage and do just that. My son had just woken from his nap (lucky boy) and from somewhere in the depths of my mind I remembered how much I liked making kites as a child, so I asked him if he wanted to make one. He was very keen and couldn’t wait to use his scissors (the fact his are plastic and they wouldn’t cut string nor carrier bag didn’t seem to bother him too much as I distracted him with stickers).
The plan was simple, firstly I would check to see if the massive bag of kebab skewers were still around, they were so I grabbed a few and snipped off the sharp ends with scissors.
Once I knew I had those, I needed to ensure we had some string, the two main elements as I know for a fact we’ve got about 12000 carrier bags, give or take so I wasn’t worried on that front.
I untangled the string whilst my son stuck Mister Maker stickers on the outside of the carrier bag to decorate it.
Once the string was more or less untangled, I got my son to help tape together the sticks into a cross shape and cut open a carrier bag (I guess I butterflied it).
Now that this was all in place I stuck the kebab sticks to the carrier bag itself and trimmed down the excess into a more kite shaped object, smaller triangle on top, longer one towards the bottom.
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It looked like it will fly, although I then remembered that on kites I’d made in the past the sticks had ripped off the kite, compensating for this I put a small hole in the carrier bag and threaded the string through the hole and out the other side so that when we’re flying it (if it actually gets off the ground) it should stay stuck to, as the carrier bag would be pushing against the sticks instead of away from them. One bonus Dad point for forward thinking and experience there.
We were pretty much done, the kite was cut into kite shape with the string threaded through it and tied to the frame and the excess string wrapped round an old loo roll tube, obviously. I guess a clingfilm tube would have been better, it’s stronger and allows for a better grip, but I didn’t have one of those.
I did actually think at one point as I was cutting up the carrier bag, it might actually be easier to just tie the string round the handles and put a hole in the bottom, but that would be a pretty crappy kite.
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With kite in hand me and my son (I know it’s my son and I but can’t help but hate that correct bit of grammar) headed off out, it was spitting! (It’s spitting! Everybody in!)
Luckily, it was only spitting and not persisting it down like it had been just an hour previous, with my wife encouragement of “it will be dark before you’ve finished that thing” ringing in my ears we headed out the door. My sons hood was up, mine didn’t exist as I don’t own a coat with a hood, why? I don’t know. I also don’t own an umbrella either.
We headed towards Peel Tower as I knew that it’s always windy up there and the wind down in the valley of Ramsbottom simply wasn’t enough to get the kite anywhere.
Instead of heading up The Rake as I would normally do, me and my son went up the footpath behind the graveyard at Holcombe Church. We’d never been this way before but had passed the sign several times in the past. It always seemed a bit too steep to take my son up, but he is very good on his feet now so I had no trouble. My son had a brief stop for “you should have gone before we left” and then we were wandering past the gravestones through the church. 
Something must happen to you when you understand what they all mean as I was respectfully walking through but my son was having a great time running around hiding. I thought to myself briefly that if it were me, I’d want people to be having fun around me still, not only seeing sad people’s faces all the time. Even still, I felt the need to at least get him to walk on the path so we did.
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We got to the front of the Church and then sun had come out, it was great news as I knew we had a fair walk to go up Holcombe Hill yet and if it was raining it would certainly have put a downer on things.
We headed across Helmshore Road and up Moor Road which I thought would be a quiet road to walk up as previously I’d gone up Cross Lane to Peel Tower. Turned out there is a riding school at the top of Moor Lane and there must have been some event on as there were several cars passing us. I didn’t mind as Luke was enjoying himself splashing in the puddles whilst we waited for the cars to pass.
Once we got to the top we headed up the field, climbing up over the wall via the style and down the otherside all without my son falling over and splitting his head open, which is something that always runs in my mind, over protective I seem to be.
I noticed that once we got about halfway up the hill, we could see the riding school where all the cars were heading. I pointed out the horses to my son and he pointed them out too. 
I noticed whilst we were stopped that the wind had picked up a bit and was certainly getting to the “could fly a kite in this” strength that we needed. We picked up the pace and got a bit higher.
It was time, had that 40 minutes or so preparing and making this kite been a waste of time? Was this going to be a total let down?
I tested the kite first (naturally, I might have made it with my son but we both know it’s MY kite! Only kidding, mine is pink).
It flew, and not only did it fly, it hung there like some proper kite from China that costs 40p to make and sells for £5.
I was amazed, we had done it, we’d made something from stuff we just had lying around the house, had had a great walk and the kite actually worked.
I stopped and looked down; I accepted it was time to let me son have a go, after all it was his kite.
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