Judith's blog

We’ve had a week of dealing with an unpleasant issue in the LMSC, so we decided to have the day off and go out and about. We chose Shrewsbury, which we’ve never really explored before. It’s really nice.

The Shrewsbury regatta was on, so we spent some time looking at the boats and races, until the cold wind made us look for shelter in a tea room. We also looked at the town museum.

In the evening, I went the Bishop’s Castle fair with Michaela, Wayne, Jackie and Andrew. I chickened out of the big ride (I did it last year), but Wayne and Andrew did it under duress. Andrew’s face was five minutes of astonishment (‘How did I end up here?) and Wayne looked like his balls were in a vice on the way up and as if he was going to loose his lunch on the way down. Hysterical.

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Guess what? It was windy today!

Great working weather, so I edited the podcast I recorded with Tom Payne yesterday and it is available on the podcast page now. It’s on alpine flying and another really interesting one.

We also had the first meeting of the new Long Mynd Soaring Club committee, which Geoff now chairs. Thanks to all who came along, including Dave T who attended virtually, by webcam and skype, which is the way I usually attend committee meetings when we are in Spain. It’s going to be interesting for Geoff when we are back in Spain, chairing a meeting of ten or so people, remotely. Anyway, it was a very productive meeting, with a lot achieved.

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We woke up to a glorious morning, just shame it was so windy. We had breakfast in the garden with Sean and Dave and then Brian came along, so it was a very sociable day. Lunch time we went to Clun for the Green Man festival. It was very cute (i.e. tiny). One food stall, one lemonade stall, some very half-hearted battle reenactment (two people only, so strictly speaking, a fight reenactment) and a jazz band, which was improved when the Bishop’s Castle samba band decided to jam along. It took all of 5 minutes to walk around, so we listened to the bands for a while and then went home to cut the grass and do some work.

The wind did drop off enough for a couple of hang gliders to fly in the evening, but it rained at 6.30pm and Geoff couldn’t be bothered to rig the glider at 7pm for a bit of a hop.

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Geoff writes: Judith is obviously getting into shopping, she went for the second time this week, this time with her mother to Barcelona. We clearly need a new category, shopping, for the blog.

I went flying. I was a little late, and didn’t arrive till 2.30. Joan and Luis had been there a while, and had had some good flights, but it was starting to go east. Luis went down, but I launched, flew for a while, and top landed. Roger launched just after I landed and went down, so I went to pick him up. By the time we got back up, it was light and very east, and no sun. So Joan and Luis decided the day was over and went home.

Roger and I sat it out. After about 45 minutes or so, the sun came out, the wind picked up and came more on the hill, so I launched, and went straight up. The sun was quite weak, and not out for long, but it was flyable then until late, with surprisingly strong thermals (though it is February, they should be good here), coupled with ridge lift. It was easy to get 700’+ ATO (with a lot more height to be had if I’d wanted to drift back), and quite difficult to lose height to land. Marc turned up having seen us fly, and had a short, but nice, flight. Just before the hill got in shadow, we all top landed, had our usual beers, and I went to pick up Judith and Liz from Girona, since they’d been so busy shopping they had missed the last bus home from Barcelona.

A really nice day’s flying. Glad I didn’t go shopping….

Judith writes: Well, if that’s what shopping is, I need some more lessons!

My mum and I met up in Barcelona for a day out and decided to go on a bit of a walk down memory lane. We spent two weeks there on an intensive language course in 2000, so instead of going shopping, we walked down the Ramblas for old time’s sake. In those days there were few stag parties and Ryanair refugees, so the place wasn’t packed to the rafters with tourists. Then you could amble down the Ramblas and see jugglers, break dancers, puppeteers, musicians and only the odd living statue. Then the living statues still had some novelty and because they had to compete with a variety of artists had to be pretty good. Today, Barcelona council won’t give busking licenses to anyone other than the statues because the crowds gathering around street performers were causing traffic problems and provided rich pickings for pick-pockets. Maybe a fine bureaucratic decision, but a living statue every 20 meters is pretty boring.

So, off to one of the other highlights of Barcelona: La Boqueria, the indoor market off the Ramblas. It’s a feast for the eye and the stomach. The colours, smells and atmosphere are amazing and I love going each time. Food-wise there is pretty much nothing you can’t get there.

Then off for lunch in an off-the-main-drag tapas bar. After lunch we still didn’t have the inclination to hit shops, so we went to the aquarium instead. I finally managed to identify and learn the names for all the fish we see when snorkeling near Roses. Of course I have forgotten nearly all of them already, but we see a lot of different types of wrasse here.

We were so engrossed in the fish, corals, and amorous iguanas that we forgot the time and had to hot-foot it back up to the Garrotxa Bus, which we missed by a couple of minutes.

All day in Barcelona and we didn’t actually go into a single shop!

See photos of today.

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The big news from this morning is that I won the Parapente Girona PG world championship sweepstake! I picked Andi Aeby, so I am four bottles of good wine, a dinner at Can Co and a crate of beer better off. Yippee!

The forecast was very inconclusive. There were weather warnings for strong NW winds and snow; but it could also work out as sunny and light winds, depending on where you were. What was an issue was over-development, but then again… depends on how localised, close together, etc.

We ummmed and aaahed for a bit and decided to wait and see, so Michaela and I went to the tree house/labyrinth at Argelaguer. As we walked in, we met the constructor and it was really interesting talking to him, especially when I said that I had been many years ago. He’s keen to build the maze and tree houses, rather than towers. He assured me that there were seven of them before, rather than just the five that I remembered. Michaela loved it! He’s expanded the labyrinth even in the two weeks since we went and the owner told us about bits that we hadn’t seen before, so Michaela and I went down a steep bank, via three tree houses, to a little bridge to a place I didn’t even think was his land. Amazing what you can miss.

As we were in the maze the sky was just incredible. Cumulus to die for, but it seemed to be picking up. By the time we had climbed the highest tower it was definitely over-developing. However, ever hopeful, we went to Santa Brigida, thinking that it might stay blue there.

When we got to Amer, it was south. It would have been absolutely perfect, had it not been for the cu-nimbs surrounding us. We waited for a while, and the blue hole around us closed in and we admitted defeat when we heard thunder near and then above us.

Michaela and I then went to Olot to procure the prizes for the LMSC awards (our lips are sealed!). Since neither of us are habitual shoppers, it was a real novelty fun experience, enhanced by cake!

See photos of today.

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We should have gone skiing today, but the forecast was snowy and we didn’t fancy it. It was a mistake as it wasn’t flyable either. We worked until 3.30pm when we felt we needed (and deserved) a break. By way of light relief we went to Besalu to go round the recently restored and opened Jewish baths. Despite what it says on their opening times, it was closed. So what to do? I had a brain wave and we went for a walk down memory lane.

When we first came to this area on holiday thirteen years ago  there was a tree house on the road just outside Argelaguer (between Besalu and Castellfollit). When I say house, actually it was more like a tree castle. It spanned 4 trees with bridges and platforms connecting the buildings. Each had at least one high (30ft) tower, some had several turrets, etc. It was all made of scrap: branches, old bed posts, pallets, etc. There were benches and hammocks made of barrels and crazy sculptures made of old buckets and baskets. It looked like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral but made in wood. You could freely climb around and climb the towers. When we went there in 1996, the guy had been building it about 15 years, so it was massive. You could see it from the road and it would sometimes cause minor accidents when tourists would slam their brakes on to get a look at this strange construction poking out of the trees. After a couple of years the builder/owner felt he had gone as far as he could with the tree house bit and decided to build a maze around the place. It was made of tunnels made of branches. You then had to climb all around this labyrinth to actually get to the tree house and he integrated it into the maze, so the challenge became to work through this maze to climb the towers.

So as never to bore the local children, he would change the paths, so you couldn’t use the same route twice. He put little jokes in the maze, like in a dead end you’d find a mannequin’s legs sticking out of the ground with a sign above saying “Here lies the body of a tourist who never found the exit again!”. To make a long story short (too late!) it was absolutely brilliant. A free adventure playground, living sculpture and just unbelievable piece of engineering. So good, it made it into National Geographic magazine.

In 2002 they started to build the dual carriageway and they decided the tree house would have to be torn down to make way for the road. In the spring of 2003 we climbed around and up the highest tower for the last time and it was really sad. There were petitions and small protests, but it was still demolished. When we came back the following September, it was mostly gone and just a small tower left. So much for the history lesson…

Recently as we have been driving past the site, we have seen bits of the labyrinth re-built and a tall tower has shot up from the trees again. The gentleman who builds the place is getting on in years so we didn’t think he would bother again. So today we went and had a look. He obviously started again straight away as the place is huge. He’s integrated the culvert under the dual carriageway to create a glade with amazing water features, sculptures, etc. The maze is massive again and there are two towers. You have to go over and under stuff, squeeze through little openings and you are sometimes under the roots of the trees. We were so happy climbing around and eventually we found our way up the tallest tower again. Then we realised that time was getting on and we had to get our skates on to find our way out again before nightfall. Great fun!

See photos of today.

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We got up at 5am to get the ferry to Malta and head for the airport. It was raining for the first time in the whole week and as we were driving to the airport we were provided with a spectacular lightning display at sea all around us.

When we got back to Girona it was raining… Geoff had left my glider in the van so I could go flying on the way home. No chance. As I drove home I could see flooding, water logged fields and the rivers higher than I have seen them all year.

In the evening I got a call from my parents telling me of the storm which hit our area the night before, with 100kph winds, rain, snow etc. Olot, 6km up the road, but 100m higher, has thick snow and is in chaos. The Rupit road was closed and my parents had to make a huge round trip via Vic to get home (it took them 6 hours, including shopping for the next week in case they can’t get out again). They had to dig out their garage and steps. More bad weather forecast for the next few days. 185cm of snow in Masella though!

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