Every year The Reinge Clinic takes part in the Kenilworth Carnival. This year, however, the Carnival seemed to appear out of nowhere, at least that’s how it felt. Obviously, we knew it was coming but somehow, suddenly there it was, just a couple of weeks away.
With no float prepared, I dived under an enormous pile of brash from hedges we had cut, to access the base trailer we build the float on, and made a start. Last year, after the super heavy kayak the skeletons rode in, we had already announced that this year the skeletons would be skiing.
Designing a ski slope with skeletons was starting to look like the kind of challenge I should have started addressing many months back. Still, we are nothing but inventive and got to work on a design. We discovered the first year we ever did the carnival that once the float was complete it will not go through the back gate of our house out to the road.
So, whatever we build needs to be quick to take apart and easy to re-assemble on the morning of the carnival. This was tricky as we had to create a ski slope and somehow get the skeletons to stand up on it and get this out of the garden and into the road.
A wooden garden chair, that had somehow broken earlier in the year, presented itself as a perfect A frame; and an aluminium pallet, that had been down the side of the house for months, allowed us to create a solid structure that could be handled separately to the base. Meaning we could take it off to get it through the gate. We topped it with the snowy surface……..the back of a discarded IKEA wardrobe.
We put it all together and it worked fine, the only problem now was that it wasn’t very snowy, rather a combination of brown silver and a little bit of white. A tin of white paint was applied and thanks to the 30+ degree heat, dried just as quickly as it went on. Some white sparkly tinsel was grabbed from the Christmas decorations box, and it started to come to life. A few icicle tree decorations and our snowy float emerged.
The day before the Kenilworth Carnival we moved the various pieces out to the drive at the front of the house and put it all together, leaving the skeletons in the clinic until carnival day. On carnival morning Sid took to the skis, Freddie settled onto his sledge and, true to form, Eddie sneaked onto the float at the last minute. Typical of him not to want to be left out.
I attached the whole lot to the bike to test it out on the road. In my mind it should all have been lighter than the kayak set up of the previous year, but it wasn’t! Still, it held together on our little road test and I could move it, so all was good.
With my Biomechanics head on, my only real concern, was the way Sid, our skiing skeleton, was attached. I was a little concerned about how his support pole went into the tube on his back and that this area would be subject to a lot of stress and could possibly snap. Then I thought about it in terms of the previous carnivals, where he had survived just fine. And decided to just go with it.
With everything set up I headed to the start point at Abbey fields, I arrived without incident which made me feel much better about Sid and his fixings. The carnival set off and I slid into place between two lorry floats relatively close to the front.
All went very well until the turn from Castle Road onto Castle Hill, when I heard a loud crash behind me. I looked around to be greeted by the sight of Sid’s legs and pelvis sticking out of a pair of ski boots, but no “body” attached! Panicking that his torso was in the road and might get run over by the lorry following, so I stopped. However, when I jumped off the bike to rescue what was left of Sid, he had, to my surprise fallen onto the float and not the road at all. A quick inspection revealed that his support pole had indeed snapped at the point I had been concerned about. Poor Sid, he was taking the humiliation with good grace though.
What to do? I had to continue, but a pair of legs and a pelvis skiing behind the bike would have looked odd, somewhat macabre, and a little monty pythonesque to say the least. Fortunately, being a physiotherapy clinic, The Reinge Clinic had a physiotherapist on hand to deal with the emergency.
At this point a very helpful lady from the crowd appeared (I am sorry I never got your name but, thank you) and asked if it would help if she held Sid’s torso up, whilst I Zip tied it back onto the pelvis.
I happily accepted her offer of help and within a few minutes running repairs were completed and I was off again, with a somewhat deformed looking passenger, but now I was right at the back of the parade. The parade stopped for a while at the top of Castle Hill and the organisers suggested I took this opportunity to make my way past some the larger floats to re-join the procession. I managed to get past a few floats before the road narrowed to the point that it was impossible to make any further progress
After a little while the parade began to move again and the threat of Rosemary Hill loomed ever closer.
Gina was waiting outside the Priory Theatre and was starting to get worried as a fair number of floats had passed with no sign of me. As I reached the Priory I was greeted with a glass of ice-cold water, which given the heat was most welcome. Thank you to the Priory members as always. The rest of the members, I think, were hoping to throw water over me but I declined, much I think to their disappointment.
Every year Rosemary Hill is a nightmare on the bike towing the float, but every year the crowd cheers me on.
Last year I had really struggled near to the top, and this year the float was even heavier. About three quarters of the way up I was considering getting off the bike and pushing it but I didn’t want to let the crowd down.
They were giving me huge encouragement, in the form of cheers and it spurred me on. Somebody enquired as to if I wanted a push but I declined so as to not let the crowd down.
I struggled to turn the pedals up the final slope into Priory Road and had the slope not stopped there I think I would have had no choice but to get off or accept a push. But I made it to the top again!
I had a beautiful coast down Priory Road where the parade stops for about half an hour at the Kenilworth Methodists Church, a big heartfelt thank you for all the refreshments they provide.
This gave me some energy back and we set off again around the rest of Kenilworth.
The beauty of being on a bike is I can hear the comments from the observers the most common comment I heard after “look, it’s the skeletons” was “that looks heavy”. My goodness me, you were all right it was heavy, very heavy. Thank you for all the comments and our fabulous customers who gave words of encouragement when they saw me come past.
Overall, the day was great. It is such a wonderful community event and shows Kenilworth off to its best. Just to top it off we won the first prize for our category again. Next year the skeletons are going to be surfing!! Hopefully we can find a lighter solution.
A huge thank you to everyone who waved, cheered us up Rosemary Hill, chatted to us during the day and came to visit The Reinge Clinic Physio stand on Sunday.
We love being part of the Kenilworth Carnival and are already wondering how on earth we’re going to get three skeletons surfing next year.