Geoff writes: a bugger of a day. Our van has been up for sale, and someone phoned me, said he definitely wanted it (even though he hadn’t seen it, which I thought was a bit odd), we negotiated a price, and a time to pick it up – and the only time he could do it was 4.30 today. Oh well, I can sacrifice one XC day to sell the van (I thought).

The hang gliding comp was at the Mynd again, so I decided to go and fly the hangie. I was in no rush, knowing I couldn’t go XC, and arrived just as the window opened, launching as soon as I rigged, by which time most, though not all, the competitors had left. And it was a really good day. Rough, windy, but very strong thermals. very, very easy to climb out. The goal was 103km, in Gloucestershire, Moreton-in-the-Marsh I think. I haven’t been XC on the HG for a couple of years, and it was clearly blown out all today for PGs, so I probably would have gone – not least, because flying with 60 or so other HGs, and going XC would be fun. But I couldn’t, so flew for a while, then landed, and went to the train station to meet the man who was definitely going to buy the van. The conversation went something like this:

“Oh. It’s not got windows. I thought it had windows.”

“No, it’s a van, it doesn’t have windows.”

“Oh. I was expecting windows.”

“No, it’s a van, it was advertised as a van, you said the word ‘van’ when you phoned me about it.”

“Oh. It’s not got any windows.”

“NO. IT’S A VAN!”

He did test drive it, then tried to beat me down on the already agreed price.  I was getting increasingly annoyed by this time, so we gave up, and left him to catch the train back.

Such a waste of a good XC day – at least 12 have got into goal, maybe more. Apart from the accident on Sunday, they are having a great competition. Tomorrow looks good too, certainly taskable, though a lot lighter winds. We will be out flying on the PGs, after our morning phone meeting for our November conference.

2 Comments »