Judith's blog

We started the serious packing and sorting today. We should have been on our way to Millau for a few days flying, but the forecast gales and rain put us off. I did check the live wind machine there this afternoon and the readings were NE 49.6kmph, with gusts of 82kmph. A little on the breezy side.

Here the weather was hot and sunny, but also breezy. Too windy to fly (though it was, we found out later, flyable at Berga). We got restless at lunchtime, so packed a picnic and headed to Sadernes for a laze around and to top up our tans. It must have been hot… Geoff took off his jacket, jumper and shoes and socks! I decided to try and go for a swim, but only got as far as a paddle. The lake is fed by a river which carries melt water from the Pyrenees, so it was a bit nippy.

Now back to packing and then out to dinner with my parents to hear all about their holiday and say farewell again.

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We seem to have messed up the flying today… The forecast was not particularly brilliant for the coast (or so we thought) and although it said it would be light and SE in the centre of the day, it said the same for Santa Brigida. We were hoping to fly with Nicky today, not just to be able to say good-bye, but also to collect some glider bits from her. There was no wind when we left home, but wind started to be in evidence from Olot. As we drove past the turn off to the tunnel to Bellmunt, it was howling, so we thought there would be no chance there.

As we got to Santa Brigida it was gusty and west. As we waited for Nicky to arrive, we saw Roger, but he had some proper flying to do (Girona – Granada – Girona and then Girona – Rome – Girona), so he didn’t stick around. The wind then turned NW.

We had a nice chat and sun bathe, but then Nicky had to go home to prepare for her trip to Brazil and the PWC. We headed into Amer, where there was a meeting of legionnaires. They came from all over Catalunya to compete. The criteria included dress, synchronisation, choreography, etc. There were hundreds of them, with drummers, standard bearers, little legionnaire mascots, etc. We only stayed for four groups, but the Mataro group, for example, had 80 members. The second group included what appeared to be vestal virgins, which Geoff got very excited about, until he realised they were boys.

And the flying news is that they had nice flying at Sant Pere de Rodes and Bellmunt was flyable until 3pm. Ho hum.

Geoff writes: I really like Roman stuff, and a few days ago we’d seen that there was this big festival in Amer. I thought it would be on the lines of battle re-enactments, or displays of armour, or something like that, i.e. something vaguely historical  – but what it turned out to be was a lot of marching bands, who just happened to dress up in Roman outfits. Still, some of the outfits were very nice. To be fair, we did miss some of the other events, so probably there was more of a historical context to those.

See photos of today.

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Today was a will-it-won’t-it day. At first it definitely seemed a write-off, but then the forecast changed and it was light winds and the sun came out. We had just made arrangements to meet Johnny at Santa Brigida when the wind started picking up a lot. He was at the drop zone in Empuria Brava where the jump master was restricting people will less than 400 jumps from going up in the plane and they were anticipating stronger winds to come. Johnny wasn’t keen and so we finally settled on having a rest day. However, it seemed too nice a day to sit indoors, so we resurrected an old plan to go and check out some flying sites up north. Lots of sites here have fallen into disrepair due to lack of use, so we wanted to confirm that Les Salines and Neulos are still usable before wasting a good flying day going up there for nothing. We’ve also never really ventured into the countryside in that area, so we thought it would make a nice day out.

Neulos straddles the border and you need to access it from the French side. As we approached La Jonquera we could see cloud base was about 700m. Since the launch is 1246m it seemed a waste to drive up and stand in fog. So we turned round and headed to Les Salines instead. We stopped off briefly at Darnius, a nice, but unspectacular village. There is a huge reservoir near Darnius, but we missed the turn off and drove along side it until I spotted a bit of it… there was so little water in the lake that we had been looking over it, rather than at it.

We found the road up to Les Salines and headed up. After a kilometer the road changed from tarmac to dirt and we wound our way up the mountain for 9km until we encountered a snow drift which we couldn’t cross. Argghhh. After a picnic in the woods, we drove down again, not having seen the launch. The mountain does look great though. A huge bowl with sharp rocks. It reminded me of some of the mountains you get in the Gredos.

Once we were off the mountain and back in Maçanet de Cabrenys, we drove around trying to find the old bit, but managed to completely bypass it, so thought it was newish and didn’t stop to look around. We did find the dam at Boadalla, but it isn’t a patch on the Susqueda dam.

By this time Geoff was getting a bit frustrated with the day. So far everything had just gone wrong! We decided to ditch the day and just meet up with Johnny in Figueres to give him the Hook. On the way there, Geoff slammed the brakes on and reversed back. He’d spotted a waterfall. He’s a real sucker for them and his thing is always to try to get behind the water. We walked up to it and managed to get into the cave behind. Then we discovered a proper cave and a way of climbing up to get behind the waterfall again into a different cave. It was brilliant and saved the day.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: Richard left this morning, Wayne’s flight was later this afternoon. Though dull, it was almost certainly flyable, but Wayne opted for an easy day, and we did tourist stuff. We managed to go up the church tower, something we have been promising him for years. You get a nice view of the old part of Castellfollit there, and there are lots of old photos and maps, etc. The church is no longer a church, being badly damaged in the Civil War, and is now a cultural centre.

Then to Banyoles for a walk around the lake, and lunch in the old square (inside – it was still freezing). We went up Roca Corba, to see the hang gliding launch (a very steep and narrow ramp) and the views, but it was clagged in. Then to see the ruins of a Roman villa. We like to keep our house guests busy.

Finally to the airport. Wayne is back at work tomorrow, so can have a rest.

See photos of today.

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Terrible weather. Lots of rain, but at least it’s snowing in the mountains. Tonight is Reyes, the main event for Christmas here. Christmas Eve is just a warm up; the real presents come today. They are brought to the village by the three kings, or Magi, with a procession of pages, drummers, fire breathers, etc.

This year the streets seemed empty until the trailer with the presents arrived, followed by hundreds of kids. I didn’t know we had so many youngsters in the village! It’s a really nice atmosphere because the young people who don’t have children are part of the procession and as they remember the excitement of their own childhood they try to make it special for the next generation.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: we’ve finally got around to setting up a podcast feed, so you can subscribe to them – see the link on the right hand menu. At the moment, it’s just for iTunes, but we’ll add others if required. We’ll also put more useful ID3 tags on the podcasts, making them a bit easier to find on your iPod. Let us know if there are any problems with subscribing – you will, of course, need to have iTunes already installed on your computer.

Other than that, a very warm day, pushing 20C, but very windy, so we just wandered out for a walk around Besalu, with lunch outside in our t-shirts, and did some work. We almost managed to see the Jewish baths there, which are always closed when we go, by trying to surreptitiously join a guided tour, but we were spotted at the entrance and turned away. Oh well, we would pay if we could ever find the information office open!

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The weather wasn’t stunning today, so I left Geoff to struggle with the accounts some more, while I went up to Rupit to make Christmas biscuits and spend some quality time with my parents. By 4pm the whole house smelled like a German Christmas market – cinnammon, cloves and ginger. We made enough to feed the family and most of the village and then sat down to dinner, wine and games. My dad won them all, so nothing unusual there.

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