October 2008

Monthly Archive

Friday, 3rd October 2008

03 Oct 2008 | : Trying, but failing, to fly

Stanta Brigida, near AmerThere is always a period of adjustment when we change countries. We need to do what the Spanish call ‘change the chip’. One of the things which always takes a few days is to re-learn to interpret the forecast. In the UK it’s invariably worse than the forecast. Here it is almost always better. Even on a bad forecast, there is some part of the day, or some place where it is flyable. The same happened today. The forecast was for rain. There were a few spits this morning, but then the sun came out and it was lovely. I checked the 11.30am update and they were forecasting strong winds at the coast (perfect for Santa Brigida), but big cloud development in that area.

Geoff is still not 100%, and I decided too late that I wanted to go out and fly. By the time we got to Santa Brigida the clouds were already looking ominous and were causing gusts on launch. Had we been there an hour or two before it would have been a nice day. We read our books for a while, had a beer and a snooze. As we set off down the hill we could hear claps of thunder and see sheets of rain in the distance.

At home,  it was a cloudless sky. What a difference 14 miles can make!

See photos of today.

Thursday, 2nd October 2008

02 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff

Forecast for today...There are some universal truths in life. One is that no matter where you go, the weather forecasting is usually lousy. Rain indeed! This was the forecast for today.

People on the beach in Roses.How it actually turned out was nice, warm and sunny, with people on the beach and swimming in the sea.

Geoff was feeling under the weather today, so we didn’t go out, although the flying would have been excellent, given the sky. We’ll see what tomorrow brings…

Wednesday, 1st October 2008

01 Oct 2008 | : Miscellaneous activities

Roman bridge in Sadernes.

We were determined to go to the beach on our first day here, but we just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm for getting back in the car, even to drive 45 minutes to the beach or to go flying, despite it being an epic day. Instead we went swimming and lazing about in the local gorge.

The house is very dusty, not having been used much in the last six months, so we have our work cut out cleaning and unpacking for the next couple of days. Forecast for tomorrow is for rain (!), so we can get on with more mundane things in life before the hot and sunny weather returns on Friday.

See photos of today.

Tuesday, 30th September 2008

01 Oct 2008 | : France, Holiday, Trying, but failing, to fly

Tandem launching at Millau.After only 4 hours sleep in the front seats of the van we arrived in Millau with a view of flying. We have a somewhat poor history of flying there, because for the past 7 years we have been driving through Millau twice a year, but only managed to fly there for the first time last year and that was only because we refused to leave the UK until there was a passable forecast there. We were rewarded with two days of nice flying then. It was not a feat we would repeat this year.

The forecast we looked at on Saturday was was good for Monday. We stopped to buy some lunch in the supermarket and saw people launching, so we headed up, thinking they were doing top-to-bottoms because it was so light. Wrong. On top it was howling and people were flying out to get away from the ridge. Within 15 minutes of us being on top it was completely blown out, although a tandem launched and one brave soul followed him. He flew out and the spiralled down pretty much straight away. Everyone else drove down.

Geoff didn’t have the energy to rig the hang glider, so we decided to do some tourist stuff. We drove to the Cirque de Navacelles, a huge crater with a stunning little village in the bottom. A walk and snooze in the sun later, we headed home to Spain.

See photos of today.

Monday, 29th September 2008

01 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff

Cloud streets as far as the eye could see. We set off from Gloucestershire to Dover and although the forecast we had seen for the UK was rubbish, the sky was epic. Cloudstreets from Swindon all the way to Dover. Shame it was so windy, or we would have been tempted to make an unscheduled stop.

We got to France and drove most of the night, getting thwarted by the Paris authorities (as usual) who closed the motorway and diverted us round the inner ring road. I swore all the way round it.

Sunday, 28th September 2008

01 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff

We packed up the van, cleaned the house, said goodbye to Michaela and went on our merry way. It was raining when we pulled out of the drive, which is always nice, for us if not for anyone else (though we did find out later they had a great day’s flying at Llangollen!). Makes you feel glad to be going. Went to Gloucestershire to spend the day with Geoff’s family.

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