March 2010
Monthly Archive
Wednesday, 3rd March 2010
The forecast was as bad as they predicted and it has rained all day. Good working conditions. Geoff even managed some DIY, in the shape of painting part of the office. The fumes were so noxious that we had to move out of the office. Not such good working conditions after all!
Tuesday, 2nd March 2010
We went skiing at Masella. It was all fine, nice snow, sun, lots of runs, yada, yada, yada, until they closed part of the resort due to an accident. Passing on the lift we could see a big team of paramedics working on the casualty, but by the time we had skied back to the lift it was closed. We could hear the sound of the approaching helicopter and skied to the bottom of the resort immediately. After the summer we had, we didn’t have the stomach for watching another helicopter rescue.
It was a warning to take it easy and we did so for the rest of the day. On the way home we decided to stop at Ribes. We know the ski shop like the back of our hand, but haven’t been to the old part in years. I remember now why… it takes all of 5 minutes to walk round it and the main streets are nice and colourful, but the rest is a bit shabby round the edges. Still, nice to have a walk down memory lane.
Monday, 1st March 2010
Judith 01 Mar 2010 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
We woke up this morning a bit knackered. We were supposed to be going off on holiday, but the atrocious forecast for Wednesday has scuppered that. A conversation with Mike and Nicky about flying at Targasonne and Berga respectively had us all agreeing that the chances were not great – too much wind from the west. We were too lazy to go skiing.
By 11am the wind was picking up a lot here, but Meteocat dragged its heels on updating and when they finally did, nearly an hour late, it was too late to go for a bum on the beach. We tried, and failed, to fly at Bellmunt instead. To be fair, it was a long shot and we knew so when we left the house, but it’s a pretty place and it was possible that the wind would drop.
We got up to the top and it was top end, but the sky was just epic. Hot, sunny with puffy clouds out front and cloud streets over the back. Sigh. We decided to wait it out, had our picnic and read our books for about 5 minutes before we were both fast asleep like a couple of old fogies who drive to a beauty spot, block the view for everyone else and have nothing better to do than snooze. Dear me.
We managed to have a short walk an hour later, when the wind woke us up by inconsiderately picking up and shaking the van. Actually, it was quite nice to have a day off and do pretty much nothing.
Good day in the UK though, lots of 50km flights in the Peaks and Mid-Wales.
Sunday, 28th February 2010
Geoff writes: the forecast today was for a nice sunny day, but the bad weather we just got the edge of yesterday left it cloudy for today (whilst there was little wind here yesterday, the top wind speed recorded in the west of Spain was 228km). We finished off some work in the morning, then, though it was still cloudy, decided to go anyway to Bellmunt, having first checked with Oriol, who was there, that it wasn’t blown out. He said it was cloudy there too, not many people (though a small friendly competition had been planned) so we set off.
We arrived there just as people were starting to set up. The first one off maintained, and then climbed a little. The next one went down, but the third flew right, not left, and climbed way above launch. It seemed that in spite of the cloud cover, and no sun, it was, in fact, quite thermic. Judith launched, and got a max height ATO of just over 1000′. I got to about 900 ATO. It is a spectacular place to fly, with beautiful scenery. Eventually, we got flushed as the thermals died out. Judith was the last to land, just after me and Roger.
Given the lack of sun, a very good day, followed by dinner with Judith’s parents, and Debi and Willem.