July 2010
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 24th July 2010
Geoff 25 Jul 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities, Party, party, party...
Geoff writes: a poor forecast here, better further east, but it all depended on the timing of the front, which would switch off the XC potential. SW, and definitely no chance here. We did consider going to the Peaks, but spoke to Kai early on, and he said the front had already arrived at his place, only 40km or so from the Peaks, so we decided it was moving in too fast, and gave it a miss. A bad mistake, since most of the Derbyshire Soaring Club’s 500 or so members seem to have gone XC today, with numerous 100km+ flights. I don’t want to look at the League….
Instead, we messed around at home for a while, then went to watch the archery competition, arriving just as it finished for the day. More bad timing! We sat around at the field, had some tea, chatted to Martyn from Northumberland, another archer and pilot, and came home.
Judith wasn’t feeling that well, so I went on my own to the Bridges in the evening, where they were having an all day music festival, which was brilliant as ever. A real shame she couldn’t come.
Friday, 23rd July 2010
Judith 24 Jul 2010 | : Flying, Miscellaneous activities
We got up early today and headed up to the Long Mynd. We got up to cloudbase straight away, and it started drizzling, so we didn’t even bother getting out of the car.
This weekend there’s a big international archery competition organised by the Long Mynd Archers, so we helped with the setting up. Everything was already laid out in the archery field ready for transport to the playing field at Stretton school, so we went there to help measure up. We pegged out an area 90m x 100m, did some white lining and then set up a marquee. Learning archery has meant learning a new set of vocabulary, with risers, limbs, bosses, faces, ends, etc. meaning nothing to us before we started. I thought we’d just about cracked it, when they started discussing target leakage and nappies, and giggled when they saw our confused faces.
By 3pm, the sky started looking a lot better, so we made our excuses and headed back up the hill. There was a line of solid cloud to the north and good sky to the south. As we arrived, the Mynd was just in the gap between them, with the first bit of sun hitting the ground. Conditions were scratchy and the lift seemed poor, judging by the slow climb rate of the sail planes. Rich was doing ok and Alan was testing the Hook 2, but was on a small size, which wasn’t helping in the light winds. Mick was treating his family to tandem flights. Geoff and Pete Wooley took off and had to slope land and I launched and nearly went down, but managed to soar a small bubble and climb up again for a fairly heroic low save.
After that, the late afternoon and evening just got better and better, with Martin getting to 900′ ATO late on, Ali having a nice flight and Wayne skying out without a vario. It was a really nice evening session with everyone just messing about and having fun.
Thursday, 22nd July 2010
Another rainy day. The showers started earlier than expected and lasted longer too. Although some people were hopeful for an evening flight, it wasn’t to be. It was still raining on the Mynd at 9pm.
We worked, edited podcasts and obsessively watched the weather for the weekend developing. Fingers crossed…
Wednesday, 21st July 2010
Judith 22 Jul 2010 | : Archery, Work
The forecast threatened storms from lunchtime, so Graeme had an early flight on the Mynd before it went too far south. Mick, Glyn and Martin decided to try Shepherd’s Tump, but the report came back of not very good flying and then getting drenched.
We decided to try to do some archery and driving across the Mynd, we could see extensive rain out to the west and east. We managed about 30 minutes of shooting when the heavens opened and we threw everything in the boot of the car and after another 20 minutes, we decided it probably wouldn’t stop raining for long enough spells to make it worthwhile, so we went home to work. I’ve been a bit lazy recently, but have a new resolution that I will do three things on my ‘to do’ list everyday, until they’re all done. So far so good. I also went to the gym for the first time in ages and forgot how much I enjoy the running. Might go again tomorrow when it rains again…
Geoff writes: Facebook hit 500 million users today. I’m not one of them.
Tuesday, 20th July 2010
The worst day this summer, possibly. It rained nearly continuously and the Met Office had a weather warning for our area until the evening. It was Geoff’s birthday and it would have been nice to do something outside, but it wasn’t even worth contemplating. We did have two phone meetings during the day and so we worked and will save celebrating for a more pleasant day.
Monday, 19th July 2010
Judith 20 Jul 2010 | : Archery, Miscellaneous activities
The weather was lovely this morning but due to deteriorate by lunchtime. Martin considered going to Clatter, but we thought it too windy, so went to do archery instead. By 2pm, we could finally see signs of the approaching front, so we headed home to do a bit of gardening before the serious rain started. I only got one side of the hedge cut and half the lawn mowed when the first drops of rain fell and I had to abandon my efforts.
Kai came round later to record a podcast on flying triangles, which I will edit in due course. Then off to music night at the Bridges…
Sunday, 18th July 2010
Judith 18 Jul 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities
We woke up this morning to the usual howling gale and tried to decided what to do with the day. After looking at ‘What’s on in Shropshire’, we had a programme sorted out, until we heard a loudspeaker next door. Next to our house is the village hall and we’d completely forgotten that the Upper Onny Country Fair was on. We ambled along and looked at the steam engines, animals, stalls, etc. and then watched some of the displays, like the sheep shearing, a farrier shoeing horses and the sheep dog trial.
There were plenty of countryside pursuits available like welly whanging, tug-of-war and ‘splat a rat!’, where the fake rat came down the drainpipe and you had to whack it with a mallet. All day there were local bands playing and it was really well attended. We didn’t win win anything in the raffle, which was a grave disappointment, since we had our eyes firmly on the first prize… a tandem ride in a gyrocopter.