June 2009
Monthly Archive
Wednesday, 24th June 2009
Judith 25 Jun 2009 | : Boring stuff
We were woken up at 7.40am with someone phoning us to check out how much wind there was in our neck of the woods. As I stumbled to the window and peeped out of the curtains it was clear it was too windy even at that early hour. A few hours of shall-we-shan’t-we debating followed, but in the end we wrote off going to the Malverns and spent the day sorting out the garden instead. It was a beautiful day, sunny, little cumulus, just way too windy.
By 7pm we were considering going out for an evening flight, but the wind stations were giving increasing winds, so I started packing for Piedrahita instead. It was a good decision – even at 9.45pm the trees were still thrashing.
Tuesday, 23rd June 2009
Judith 23 Jun 2009 | : Miscellaneous activities
It looked like an excellent day and we were up at 6.30am. Unfortunately, not to go to the Malverns, but to Birmingham for a meeting about another online conference we are going to be running in November. This is the fourth in this series and it will be great to be working with Sarah, Ros and Lou again.
We had the meeting at the Studio, just around the corner from Birmingham New Street. What a place! Reception desks made of fish tanks; bacon sandwiches, muffins and coffee on entering the room and a lunch to die for and the whole building smelt discretely of oranges. I’m easily pleased about small things…
When we left Birmingham the sky was amazing and people did fly miles. At home it had overdeveloped and rained. In the evening we had a very productive LMSC committee meeting.
Monday, 22nd June 2009
Judith 22 Jun 2009 | : Archery
The weather forecast seemed to deteriorate for today, with lots of cloud and it only clearing towards the evening. We did some work this morning and then we went out to do archery in the afternoon. On crossing over the Mynd we were not sure if we made a mistake not taking the gliders, but there were only little patches of sun with a lot of cloud and cloudbase looked to be about 2700′ AMSL, so not promising conditions.
Archery was good, although I had to spend some time fixing my arrows (I lost a nock off one and the fletchings off three others. Ooops).
As we drove back we could see rain in Wales. Not sure if it was flyable (and good) at Llangollen, but you don’t need to fly every day…
Sunday, 21st June 2009
Geoff writes: It was a dull and drizzly start, with very light winds. Paul, our friend from Seattle, took us out for lunch before heading back to East Midlands Airport, where he was working. After he left, it finally got a bit better and we saw some people starting to soar the Mynd. We drove up, and flew for a couple of hours – it was nicely soarable all afternoon and early evening, with trips from one end to the other very easy. Max height I got was 970′ ATO, which seemed to be getting quite close to the clouds. There never was any sun all day, but pleasant enough, and a perfect day for low air timers to build up their hours.
Really nice couple of days with Paul, great to see him again.
Saturday, 20th June 2009
Judith 21 Jun 2009 | : Archery, Flying
We organised an archery have-a-go session for the Long Mynd club today. Last year we were completely oversubscribed for the event, but had to cancel it because the archery club was burgled and all the equipment was stolen. This year we had fewer takers, with 10 people showing up. It was great fun and I think everyone enjoyed it. Even little Izzy, who is only four, got to have a go and it was so sweet to see her with a tiny bow. Tom, Pete, Norman and Trevor from the archery club were brilliant and made the session really enjoyable.
Turns out that Paul is an experienced archer, although he hasn’t shot for a few years. He happily spent the morning shooting. Once we finished, we went to the Church Stretton Summerfest. We had a walk around, looked at the stalls and soaked up the athmosphere. Frank treated us to the most delicious strawberry tarts ever!
On driving back home over the Long Mynd there were lots of hang gliders flying, so Geoff grabbed his kit and headed back up for a fly.
See Paul’s photos of the Church Stretton fair.
Geoff writes: a pleasant evening’s flying on the hang glider. Cloudy, mostly ridge life, one or two light thermals. Max height I got was 860′ ATO – people were getting higher earlier in the day. Two flights, two top landings, spoilt only slightly by me and another pilot both deciding to land simultaneously from opposite sides of the ridge, both coming in at high speed on the downwind leg, and neither of us clearing our approach properly. Very sloppy, and just shows how easy it is to make a mistake.
Still, in spite of that bit of carelessness, a really nice couple of flights.
Friday, 19th June 2009
Judith 20 Jun 2009 | : Miscellaneous activities
We worked, went to the skip and then our Scottish friend Paul from Seattle came to visit. Lots of drinks later we ended up in Bishop’s Castle for a night out.
Thursday, 18th June 2009
Geoff 18 Jun 2009 | : Archery, Boring stuff
Geoff writes: windy, cloudy but dry. Not too much of a problem since it gave us the chance to do some (paid) work, some Long Mynd committee stuff, and then go to archery.
And, most important, finish off and upload a new podcast, with Judith interviewing Tom Payne about his preparation for the X-Alps. Just listened to it myself, and it’s really interesting. It will be followed by another by Tom after the X-Alps is over. We’ve got more in the pipeline too, not least because we’re getting pretty good feedback about them, and they seem both popular and useful. They do take a while to create, both doing the interview itself, which we usually do over Skype; and the subsequent editing, which takes some hours. But they’re fun to create, and we’ve learnt a lot from the people Judith has interviewed, as, I hope, has everyone else.
See the tab at the top of the page for the link to the podcasts.