Geoff writes: it seemed likely the day would be a write off, but we hung around for the briefings, until that was confirmed. Once it was, we decided to visit the Big Pit again, having first been there 13 years or so ago, on one of our first holidays together (it was raining then too). The Big Pit was a coal mine, closed in 1980, and reopened for visitors in 1983, using some of the ex-miners to run tours. The highlight for us on our first visit was the trip underground, but then it was raining so much we didn’t bother looking around the surface. This time, there’s a lot more of the museum to see on the surface, it wasn’t raining quite so much, and the queue to go underground was over an hour – so we just stayed on the surface. Unlike on our first visit, the Big Pit is, amazingly, completely free. We’d highly recommend a visit if you are in the area – it’s at Blaenavon, just behind the Blorenge, so a great activity on non-flyable days. The interpretation and historical perspective is really excellent. The only thing where it is quite weak is coverage of the Miners Strike of 84/5, which is a little odd, but maybe too close in time – even if it was over a quarter of a century ago – for the museum. Still, it was such an important event, and coverage at the time by the national media was so incredibly biased, it would have been good to see the miners’ point of view. Nevertheless, well worth a visit.

The evening was made up of talks, music and drinking. Tom Payne (who we met face to face for the first time) did a talk on the X-Alps, about which of course we also have a couple of podcasts done by Tom; and John Silvester showed a film of  a paragliding journey over the Himlayas. Both were excellent.

Judith, of course, danced until the small hours. I bailed out far earlier than that. I think I missed a wild night – pilots who haven’t flown all day, tend to get a bit frisky!

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