Geoff writes: rainy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, but way too windy. So a day for catching up on jobs. Tuesday looks like it could be a great day, with very strong thermals – but again, too windy. We’ll see what happens.

Yet again, the north was the place to be yesterday, with about 20 flights posted in the League, mostly from the Lakes, Pennines and Scotland. Relatively short though, 45km max, average around 25km. But still, a lot more than was done around here. People do say – I don’t know how true this is, but it certainly seems to be this year – that the Mynd area is much better later on in the season. Let’s hope so. Given that the number of XCs in the league from Mynd sites this year is very close to zero (well, one actually, of 13.5km), that seems accurate. Phil Colbert is leading the league (at time of writing this posting), with his top six flights totalling 406.9 km, all from the Peak District northwards. In the club league, the first southern club is Avon, in eighth place, with 229.4km – compared with the top club, Pennines, with 1228.2km (which includes Phil’s total). An incredible score, this early in the year. When we’re in Spain, we always get asked if it’s possible to go XC in the UK, do we get thermals here? If only they could see these figures!