Judith's blog

Geoff writes: we are well aware that we are incredibly lucky in the way we can live our lives. Because our work is internet based, we can work from anywhere; and because it is quite specialised (running online conferences, primarily for education), we can pick and choose when to work, so we concentrate the bulk of our work in the winter months, when the nights are long. So we have a huge amount of flexibility. However, the run up to the various winter conferences is starting now (typically, the work and the planning starts six months or so ahead), and we had our first face to face meeting today with one of our clients, in Leicester. Incredibly, it coincided with lousy weather – you can normally guarantee that when we do have a meeting we have to attend, it will be great weather. Not today, though.

This is tagged as boring stuff, because we never bothered creating a work category. But actually, running online conferences is quite interesting for us! But maybe we’re just nerds…..

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Geoff writes: good forecast, and wind somewhere between SE and SSW, so we spent a while deciding where to go, delayed further by a blocked drain which we noticed just before leaving, and had to fix. We were going to go to Bache, but heard it might be a bit too west there, so ended up going to Corndon, SE face. As we arrived, it seemed pretty good – great sky, and Ben Henson was already there, and there were clearly thermals around, James, Wendy and Graeme also arrived at the same time as we did (and Richard and Kai turned up later).

We set up, and Ben launched and started to climb. I followed him and also started to climb, when I realised I’d got my speed bar tangled up with my leg loops. Pretty stupid, and lousy pre-flight checking. I landed to fix it, and Ben climbed out and got away, for a fairly short XC – he was back quickly. But if I’d have gone too, maybe the two of us working together would have got us further.

And that was it for the next couple of hours. Lots of launches, up and down, but no great height. The wind picked up, some high cloud came in, and it got more soarable. Eventually something workable came through, and six of us got up in at at various points, but only Judith, I and Graeme went over the back, James, Kai and Rich flew back to the front. Judith had got away first and was on her own, Graeme and I were together, but he was lower.

It wasn’t working stunningly well. I sort of got a second thermal, but didn’t work it properly, and landed for a very short 8k. Judith managed to work her bit of sky better and got 15k. We were retrieved by Bevan – thanks!

At least we got away, but given the sky earlier, this was a really disappointing day. It’s a shame that more pilots don’t turn out when it’s on sites other than the Mynd, and that more don’t go XC. It was difficult (and Corndon, though a good XC site, is tricky at the best of times), but I’m sure had there been more people over the back (and on the front searching for the first thermal) better distances would have been done.

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Cracking morning, but it wasn’t to last. We went into Shrewsbury to run some errands and got rained on a lot. On the way back we went scouting for sites. We really need a SW site more locally which can take some wind and Roy Dade has possibly found such a site.

We got there and climbed up to the summit and the site looks doable. We explored it a bit and then walked back diagonally across the field. I don’t know how we managed it, but we ended up at a fence we hadn’t seen before, were we were chased by a heard of frisky young cows and had to jump over a fence whilst they ran up to it full pelt and then stopped just short, snorting and sniffing. I have no idea how we managed to get lost in a square field, but we did and had to walk the boundary of the field to get back to the starting point at launch to walk back to the car which was perfectly obvious once we were there. Of course, as soon as we were 5 minutes from the car the skies opened and we got soaked.

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Today was going to be the day. Forecast looked good for the Long Mynd and the curtaincast confirmed this. Because of the temporary airspace for the Cosford Airshow, XC flights were going to be limited, so we decided to try to make the best of what was possible and declare a goal just on the edge of the airspace. We texted in a landing field at Bridgnorth, 30km. I thought that declared goal flights got a 1.5 multiplier, so the flight would be worth 45km. I’ve declared flights before but never managed to get there, so achieving goal was going to be a first.

We got to the Long Mynd and people were high. As we got ready people started to sink out… different day, same old story. We waited for a while and Geoff launched and I followed close behind. He didn’t get up, I did. I flew off to a better thermal being marked by Mark. I didn’t get it, Geoff worked the original thermal to 1800 ATO, came back to the front, then later got to cloudbase and over the back. I slope landed and then spent the next hour relaunching, getting my foot caught in my speedbar, having to land, performing the most inept three launches of my flying career and generally behaving like a complete numpty. I did manage, at one point, to get to 1800′ ATO only to loose the thermal and then fly under several newer pilots skying out without getting a blip. At this point I did think that I didn’t really deserve to go over the back and maybe I should just land and get the car to pick Geoff up from Bridgnorth.

I did manage to pull myself together though and I did get high and over the back. Wayne was a thermal ahead of me and the other pilot in the thermal with me turned back to the front of the ridge (lots of people did. why?). So I set off on my own. I had lost radio contact with Geoff and I got another thermal over Church Stretton and then headed for Wenlock Edge. I was getting low and thought this was pretty much par for the course today… Geoff gets to goal and I end up at Wenlock Edge. As I was pondering going back into a big sulk I got a strong thermal out of nowhere. It took me back up high and I was on my way again. Cloud streets, thermals, etc. later I was at the 20km mark (approx.) and running out of cloud street. In front of me was all blue and I couldn’t reach the next cloud. I remembered the comment that Richard Westgate made in his podcast that paragliders don’t cross blue holes. Having a goal, I decided not to chance it, so flew back to the cloud I had just climbed under and climbed back to near base. By the time I did this, a lovely fluffy cloud had formed half-way across the blue bit and I jumped under it, climbed and the crossed to the far cloud street. Read more »

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What a crap day! Forecast was for WSW, fluffy cumulus and generally a classic Mynd day. It seemed a little south, but it was forecast to come round to the west, so no problem. We arrived to see Mark Leavesley and Steve Nash high but the drift was due south.

As the day progressed, the wind turned progressively south, rather than W and although people did hop off and fly, it was rough and nearly 90 degrees off, so they crawled south and then turned and shot north at hang glider speed. By 1pm we considered switching sites but reports from Clatter said it was too far off to the west and Elan Valley is closed for lambing.

By 6pm, we gave up and had an impromptu BBQ with Wayne, Michaela, Yaz, Paul and Harvey. People did fly in the evening (including Harvey and Michaela), but it never did come on completely.

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Our final day in Prague didn’t start too well. It was chucking it down when we woke up, but there was blue sky by the time we checked out of the hotel.

We went wandering around the town, but pretty much straight away had to shelter in an ATM booth from a thunderstorm. Once the rain stopped we looked at the market and the funny tourist t-shirts (“Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go to Prague.” “I fear no beer”, etc.). We found the Jewish quarter and then headed for the river to go on the pedalos. They weren’t running when we arrived,  and as soon as they opened, the next thunderstorm threatened, so we decided against it.  A nice lunch later (sausages, bread and beer), we headed back to the airport and back home.

It was a great break and Prague is a beautiful city. Well worth going. What struck us is how clean the place is. There is hardly any litter at all. Prague itself was hardly damaged in WWII (though many people died, of course, including most of the Jewish population), so the old town is completely preserved and there is barely anything new. The range of architectural styles is amazing.

See photos of today.

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We picked up a couple of leaflets for walking tours, but were spoiled for choice. There were communist, medieval, history, alternative history, ghost tours, etc. The list seemed endless. In the end we plumped for a general history/most important sites four hour tour. As the tour didn’t start until 11am, we decided to go to the Communism museum, which was fascinating. As elsewhere, the ideals of communism quickly turned into state repression, and people of Geoff’s age will remember the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw pact forces. The museum looks at this and the aftermath, including the eventual Velvet Revolution which eventually saw the overthrow of the pro-Soviet government in 1989, at around the same time as other countries under Soviet control were also gaining independence.

Whilst there we found yet more info on tours and this time found a free one, so decided to go on it instead of the fee paying one. In the event, we were the only two on it, so we had a private show of Prague with a nice young American woman called Emily. Because it was just the three of us, we did it at our pace and got to ask endless questions and get inside info on sights, venues, what it’s like to live in Prague, etc. She took us across the Charles bridge into the lesser town and up and around the castle.

After the tour we went in search of the Opera House and this whacky modern building in the middle of the art noveau district. We were going to hire a pedalo and go cruising on the river, but the wind had picked up so much that some people were having trouble steering and it looked like river boat dodgems. Having laughed at the people in the boats, we declined to provide the entertainment in turn, so went in search of beer instead.

I love finding local places off the beaten tourist track and we stumbled across a small entrance with just a small price list written entirely in Czech. From the measures it was clear what was beer and at £1 a pint, we went in. Behind the doorway was a lovely beer garden and restaurant. We were the only non-Czech people there and muddled through – despite at one point getting coffee instead of pickled cheese. They served the Prague version of tapas and we ate home smoked pork belly, pickled cheese and pepper fish pot. Delicious. It was a lovely place to spend the evening and they had to chuck us out in the end.

See photos of today.

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