Judith's blog

Geoff writes: well, from reading Judith’s report below, it seems that Spain was marginally better than the UK! Today would have been an epic day here, except for the howling winds, the overdeveloped cumulus,  the rain. And it was cold.

To be fair, I managed to avoid most of the rain. Having given up the thought of a short holiday for this week (the further north the better, tomorrow, but I need to be at home on Thursday) I decided to go a bit south and see some castles, which I duly did, visiting Grosmont Castle, and the White Castle  (so called, because you can still see some of the white rendering with which most castles were covered, rather than just being the bare rock you see nowadays). I’ve seen the White Castle before, but it is well worth seeing again, if you like castles (otherwise, don’t bother). Both of them are Norman, of course, and built to support their move into Wales.

Following a bit of a walk, a slow drive back via Hay Bluff – a beautiful place, as well as a flying site (but, of course, way too windy for anyone today). No rain until the drive home. 

Judith’s tracklogs from the comp are on our XC page.

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Geoff writes: I took Judith to Bristol Airport this morning; she’s flying to Ager in Spain for the Women’s Paragliding Open, then to St Andre in France for the British Open. She is obviously devastated at being apart from me for two and a half weeks, but is consoling herself with the thought of lots of cheap alcohol, seeing old friends, hot sunny weather, and flying every day. Oh, and being chased by all the single male pilots who are flocking to Ager for the women’s comp.

After dropping her off, I decided a good substitute for Spain in summer was Weston-Super-Mare. I’ve driven past this UK holiday resort dozens of times in the last 30 years, but never been there, and I have a weakness for British seaside towns (I do like to be beside the seaside…).  It’s actually quite a nice place, though it felt a bit like visiting the seaside in winter, rather than mid-August.  It was very cloudy, no sun at all, with rain clouds in the distance.  Strong winds. A great beach, but empty apart from one group of people who, very optimistically, were about to set up their beach blankets and hire their deck chairs.

The pier there burnt down a couple of years ago, but is being refurbished – the posters said it was due to open in Summer 2010, so they need to get a move on.

The promenade was literally a building site – they are redoing it, partly to make it nicer, but also to improve the sea defences – apparently the town is often flooded. But the noise and the disruption must be driving the local businesses crazy.

Still, there are some great advantages to the place – apart from the brilliant beach. There is every tribute band in Britain playing there at some point, including Abba (of course), Dusty Springfield, Billy Fury and Zee Zee Top. Or maybe the last two are the originals?

It’s also got its own version of the London Eye (which itself is just a jumped-up big wheel) called, imaginatively enough, The Wheel of Weston.

Cheap too – a bacon sandwich and a coffee right on the sea front for only £2.50. And lots of public toilets (something Britain is still the best in the world at, for our foreign readers).

The first hotel was built there in 1810. When the town is finally finished, it’ll be a great place to visit.

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A surprisingly gorgeous day, despite the forecast heavy rains. Geoff’s family came to see us and we all packed our rain jackets for the day out. We didn’t need them. I was over-dressed with a jumper. We sat out for lunch in Much Wenlock and then had a walk round, seeing the Guildhall, church and museum and indulging ourselves in yummy ice cream.

On coming back over the Long Mynd, hang gliders were rigging and although it was a bit top end, they were flying quite happily this evening.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: yet another windy day. OK for hang gliders a the Long Mynd, but not paragliders, unless you arrived very early in the morning, as some people apparently did. Rather than me fly my hang glider, we decided to have a day off, and went first to do some archery shooting, then to visit a National Trust house, Dudmaston Hall. This was really nice, with a few rooms of the house open – but most of them not – and some lovely grounds to walk in. It’s famous for its art collections, including some modern art (something we are less than excited about). It’s now owned by the National Trust, but the family still lives there, apparently.

There was also a demonstration of what happens when you combine coke and Mentos mints. The guy demonstrating it gave out instructions to all the kids there – which I’m sure will really please their parents when they try it in the living room.

You can also see a nice video (but crap music) of some guys that really took this seriously!

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: a poor forecast here, better further east, but it all depended on the timing of the front, which would switch off the XC potential. SW, and definitely no chance here. We did consider going to the Peaks, but spoke to Kai early on, and he said the front had already arrived at his place, only 40km or so from the Peaks, so we decided it was moving in too fast, and gave it a miss. A bad mistake, since most of the Derbyshire Soaring Club’s 500 or so members seem to have gone XC today, with numerous 100km+ flights. I don’t want to look at the League….

Instead, we messed around at home for a while, then went to watch the archery competition, arriving just as it finished for the day. More bad timing! We sat around at the field, had some tea, chatted to Martyn from Northumberland, another archer and pilot, and came home.

Judith wasn’t feeling that well, so I went on my own to the Bridges in the evening, where they were having an all day music festival, which was brilliant as ever. A real shame she couldn’t come.

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We got up early today and headed up to the Long Mynd. We got up to cloudbase straight away, and it started drizzling, so we didn’t even bother getting out of the car.

This weekend there’s a big international archery competition organised by the Long Mynd Archers, so we helped with the setting up. Everything was already laid out in the archery field ready for transport to the playing field at Stretton school, so we went there to help measure up. We pegged out an area 90m x 100m, did some white lining and then set up a marquee. Learning archery has meant learning a new set of vocabulary, with risers, limbs, bosses, faces, ends, etc. meaning nothing to us before we started. I thought we’d just about cracked it, when they started discussing target leakage and nappies, and giggled when they saw our confused faces.

By 3pm, the sky started looking a lot better, so we made our excuses and headed back up the hill. There was a line of solid cloud to the north and good sky to the south. As we arrived, the Mynd was just in the gap between them, with the first bit of sun hitting the ground. Conditions were scratchy and the lift seemed poor, judging by the slow climb rate of the sail planes. Rich was doing ok and Alan was testing the Hook 2, but was on a small size, which wasn’t helping in the light winds. Mick was treating his family to tandem flights. Geoff and Pete Wooley took off and had to slope land and I launched and nearly went down, but managed to soar a small bubble and climb up again for a fairly heroic low save.

After that, the late afternoon and evening just got better and better, with Martin getting to 900′ ATO late on, Ali having a nice flight and Wayne skying out without a vario. It was a really nice evening session with everyone just messing about and having fun.

See photos of today.

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The weather was lovely this morning but due to deteriorate by lunchtime. Martin considered going to Clatter, but we thought it too windy, so went to do archery instead. By 2pm, we could finally see signs of the approaching front, so we headed home to do a bit of gardening before the serious rain started. I only got one side of the hedge cut and half the lawn mowed when the first drops of rain fell and I had to abandon my efforts.

Kai came round later to record a podcast on flying triangles, which I will edit in due course. Then off to music night at the Bridges…

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