May 2011
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 21st May 2011
Geoff 22 May 2011 | : Miscellaneous activities
Geoff writes: windy, definitely not flyable, but sunnier further to the south east – so a good day to visit my family near Cirencester. It was not a bad afternoon really, not least because we went to visit Bibury, a classic chocolate box English village in the Cotswolds – so classic, it was full of tourists even in mid-May, with Americans, Spanish, Japanese (on an Irish coach) and Germans – and those were just the accents we heard. But it really is a very pretty place, and you can understand why it is on the tourist trail.
The Cotswolds, of course, is a very, very rich area, and very patriotic. We passed one house in yet another classic chocolate box village which had a full size poster of William and Kate (the ones who just got married) stuck to their front door. Very bizarre. Unfortunately, we had no camera with us – a great photo opportunity missed.
Friday, 20th May 2011
Geoff 21 May 2011 | : Archery, Work
Geoff writes: a few days of windy weather now. Today was mostly dry, and got quite sunny later on, so it was the usual non-flying mix of work, house jobs, and then some archery in the evening, followed by a beer on top of the Mynd admiring the view to the east.
I say there’s a few days of windy weather, but apparently, according to some religious nutters in the US, the Rapture begins on Saturday at 6.00pm precisely. This is the time when all true Christians are literally raised up to Heaven, whilst eveyone else stays in the Hell below. So maybe Thursday was the last flying day, ever, for anyone.
Religion …. how anyone can take any of it seriously is beyond me.
Thursday, 19th May 2011
Today was supposed to be classic Thursday and the first really good day on the Long Mynd since we got back from Spain. It’s been a bit frustrating for us, watching all the good days up north, but today was going to be the day. The wind was supposed to be perfect and mostly blown out furher north. RASP indicated it would be an early day, and if we were still in the air by 2pm, a gear shift down would be required.
People were already flying at 9am and we were on site just after 10am and got ready and waited. By this time the wind had dropped nearly to nothing and every passing bird was flapping. A few people tried to soar, but the only one doing anything was Martin B, who tracked along to the north of the ridge. He happily thermalled around for an hour or so, while the rest of us didn’t want to risk going down. Extensive cloud was developing and then breaking, so there were long periods of the valley being in shade. It was also going more south.
I eventually had a punt, but lost the thermal and came to land back on top. The next good cycle took Kai to the start of another big triangle, and we launched too late into the following one, which took Martin K, Nigel B and Martin B over the back. Geoff unfortunately went down, and we broke our golden rule… if you go down you’re on your own. I thought there would be enough time to get him, but as we got back up to launch the next gaggle of three left. By this time we were getting a tad disenchanted with the day. We spent another hour sitting around in nil/SW wind until I saw a group of swifts. I know that you need to launch straight away to get into the good bit of their thermal, but I did a bit of dithering, checking if they were still going up, and by the time I was off, I could feel bits of lift, but I was too low to search for it properly. Geoff had said he would come and get me… another mistake, since two more got away as I was in the bottom landing field. By this time we were getting really cheesed off.
We did launch again, and I got to 1300′ ATO, but it petered out, the drift was taking me along the Mynd and the cloud was rapidly catching up with me. I could see the two guys that had gone landing in Stretton, so I thought, ‘what’s the point?’ As I pushed back forward, Kai was coming back after being out in the valley for about 4 hours and he thermalled past me and went off to extend his triangle.
Geoff had to slope land low on the ridge and was packing up, so I top landed and did the same. It was 4pm, nil wind and the cloud cover extended as far as you could see. It did get soarable again later, but by that time we were in the middle of the next round of the Limes badminton championships, which are still a draw.
Rubbish weather again now until the middle of next week.
More lousy weather. We worked…Tuesday, 17th May 2011
Judith 18 May 2011 | : Archery, Work
It was all go today, with early appointments, then squeezing an archery session in, before I spent the afternoon in a meeting. Geoff came home to do some programming work to update our online shop, hoping he could go out hang gliding later. It wasn’t to be. It was still windy at 7pm and the daylight was so low we had to turn the lights on.
Monday, 16th May 2011
Judith 17 May 2011 | : Miscellaneous activities, Work
The windy weather continues…
Since everything has been on hold for the party preparation, we’re really behind on work stuff. Today was the day to knuckle down and get some of the pile shifted. In the evening we went to karate. Our instructor seemed to think it was perfectly reasonable for us to remember this basic kata. Since this is only our second lesson we could barely remember how to bend down and touch our toes in the warm up, never mind 24 moves in sequence (and on the third round with our eyes closed!). Still, I’m really enjoying the excercise and definetly want to continue.
Sunday, 15th May 2011
Judith 16 May 2011 | : Miscellaneous activities
Since I was still up at dawn, I could already see the pre-frontal wave appearing and knew there was zero chance of a task at the Cup. Such a shame they didn’t write it off and let people let their hair down the night before. Apparently Nigel Lassiter was flying on the Mynd from 5.30am for an hour, but we didn’t see him.
Ellie, Lester, Viv and Phil helped us tidy up (the job was made easier, since Luke had been collecting bottles and cans the night before) and I then collapsed into bed at 11am to get some sleep. More helpers appeared (thanks Mick, Luke, Paul and Yaz) and by the time I got up again, you wouldn’t have thought we’d had a party at all – except for the gravel drive through the house. A quick hoover had that sorted too.
We spent the rest of the day doing what you do the day after a party… snoozing, eating curry and watching crap telly. I was in bed again at 8pm and slept a full 13 hours. I needed it!