Geoff writes: the Long Mynd again – and an uncrowded day, since, apparently, a lot of people were watching England play in the rounders world cup, or something like that.

Great sky, we launched, I had my lowest low save ever at the Long Mynd, then climbed out. And it was very, very rough – not just low down, but high up too. And broken. And there was wave behind, which explains the roughness. Eventually, we came back to the front, and all top landed – Dave, Martin, Judith and me. We decided to wait a while to see if it smoothed out a bit. After an hour or so we all relaunched, and climbed out – no wave over the back either. Around 1500′ we sort of lost it – I think we were thermalling a bit wide in our gaggle. Nigel, Martin and Dave turned back to the front, and I thought Judith had too, so wimpishly I followed them, until I heard Judith ask why we were going back. So I turned round again to join Judith in a new climb she had found downwind. Martin, a minute or two later, tried to follow, but was way too low and ended up landing on the Mynd, well back from launch.

Judith and I bimbled along for a while, then went for a glide to a massive cloud which should have had a mega thermal underneath it, but didn’t. I think it was starting to decay as we reached it. We struggled along for a bit more, and I got another thermal which took me up 1500′ or so, but I didn’t get back to base. Judith had landed, but I managed to continue a bit longer, landing on the Much Wenlock – Bridgnorth road, for about 27km (Judith did about 21km). As ever, there was more to be had in the day, and it’s a shame there weren’t more of us to search together. But an enjoyable flight, and an easy hitch back, so could have been a lot worse! It’s always worth going over the back. You never know where you will end up.

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