Over the last few years I have enjoyed the Air Festival, although I think I enjoy it in a slightly different way to most people.

I have been to the seafront and beach and watched the displays and whilst these are generally fantastic this isn't the most interesting or enjoyable part of the show for me.

When it comes to watching the planes, I really enjoy sitting in my back garden away from the crowds and viewing the displays from there. I do miss bits and pieces as the planes disappear behind the odd rooftop, but this along with guessing which plane I'm about to see as I hear the roar is part of the enjoyment.

My house also sits pretty close to the flight path from Hurn Airport to the display area so I get to see most of the planes as they travel backwards and forwards.

The other part of the Air Festival that really interests me is the preparation and logistics of putting on an event like this. Because I commute to work along the seafront I get to see the preparations as the town gets ready.

These are my daily observations of the week preceding the show and the aftermath:

The cleaning and general sprucing up of the seafront area had been going on for a while, but on Monday of last week, things kick up a gear. There are lots of trucks unloading staging and equipment.

Red paint is being used to mark out pitches for the various traders’ stands and the tannoy system is being put in place. This carries on and on Tuesday you wouldn't really notice much change.

Wednesday with one day to go until the event officially begins is a day of enormous amounts of activity. Ranks of portable toilets are put in place to cater for the crowds of people; there is what appears to be a full funfair in place on the beach along with various marquees.

I imagine that an alien landing in the midst of the preparations would imagine that this is going to be some kind of recruitment event for the armed forces and the fast food industry as most stands seem to be either promoting one of the forces or selling burgers!

One change this year was the addition of golf buggies that the event staff were using to get around on. This surprised and disappointed me, the distance between the piers is less than 1.5 miles surely bikes would have been just as fast and more efficient that electric buggies?

As the event gets closer road closures are now in force and there seems to be an assumption that most of the people who are planning to attend are unaware of the meaning of road signs and double yellow lines as hundreds of cones are placed to stop people parking in places where the road markings clearly indicate that no parking is allowed!

This is one thing about the Air Festival that really bugs me. I think that if I had the parking fines from all of the illegally parked cars that I passed on Friday whilst cycling home I could probably retire! It's not just the fact that the parking is illegal, it's dangerous and obstructive.

Bournemouth council should have had extra parking wardens patrolling to try and discourage people from what was frankly just stupid parking!

On Friday morning I was particularly looking forward to the ride in to work as I wanted to see what the seafront was going to be like after the little bit of rain we had on Thursday. I have to applaud both Bournemouth and Poole councils for the way in which the clean up was carried out.

At 7am on Friday morning there were teams of people out clearing and disinfecting areas and making sure that the seafront was clear and ready for the day.

There was still some evidence of the previous day’s floods, but you wouldn't have imagined how much water had been cascading through this area only hours earlier.

Friday was a lovely day to ride, on the way home I watched the displays as I pedalled long the Eastcliff and, of course, managed to avoid all the traffic!!

Monday morning was always going to be interesting to see the aftermath of the show.

As I got the Boscombe and started riding along towards Bournemouth I was very pleasantly surprised to see how little rubbish there was along the seafront.

Then I realised I was behind the clear up operation and once I had passed this I found myself in a scene from a post apocalyptic horror film with the detritus of human existence spread everywhere in piles of rotting rubbish. I guess the AFC Bournemouth Green Goals recycling messages fell on deaf ears!

So that was the Air Festival over for another year from the perspective of being in the saddle. I enjoyed the displays and the Red Arrows as usual were a highlight of the show.

My thoughts go out to the friends and family of Flt Lt Jon Egging and I hope that this doesn't mean that the team will be grounded permanently.

Based on information supplied by David Brown.