I have been saying to people all week that today would be the day, but of course the forecast had been getting progressively more dodgy as the day got closer. The original plan to go to Llangollen changed to the Peaks and by last night it was clear it would be too windy there. So this morning the forecasts were all over the place again, and largely contradicting each other.

My take was that it would be an early day, hopefully on the Long Mynd, before it became too windy and NW, and possibly over-developed. Wendy Windblows was giving WNW all morning, very light, so we set off up the hill at 10.45am. We got there and it was anywhere between NW and NE. This wasn’t a particular issue, just a matter of swapping location, but there were both cumulus and wave bars forming all around us.

After much debating and faffing, we decided that the wave was going to make going XC a little tricky, so we canned the day and went off to Bishops Castle to shop for some lunch. As we came out of the Co-op and opened the car doors, a dust devil ripped down the high street and filled our car with crap and then whizzed on down the hill. Obviously a very, very thermic day!

By the time we had finished lunch, the wave had completely disappeared and we seriously considered that we had made a mistake not going flying. I was still concerned about the forecast increasing wind, so we did a bit of gardening before finally deciding what to do with the day. As the afternoon progressed, the wind seemed to be picking up, so we wrote off the day and went to archery instead.

You could tell it was windy… shooting at 50 yards, we were having to compensate for the wind and to say we were hopeless would be an understatement. At one point we had to get the metal detector out because one of us missed the target and we couldn’t find the arrow anywhere. Luckily, it won’t shred the mower when the field gets groomed tomorrow.

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