Judith's blog

The forecast (yesterday) for today was an excellent day. Wall-to-wall sunshine and we were all getting quite excited about the flying prospects. Then we woke up and the sky was grey and it was raining! They did a hedge all bets update with sun-rain-snow-fog-NW-S possible anywhere in the NE. The synoptic only showed high pressure, so that gave us no further clues. Arrgghh. There was a collective shoulder shrug from our little mid-week group and then we waited to see what would happen. We briefly even considered going to Àger, but too much to do here (people to see, places to go). When it started clearing we settled on Bellmunt and Nicky came along to say good-bye. What we hadn’t spotted, until we drove up the road, were the massive wave bars all over the place. Hmmmm.

When we got to Torelló, Oriol gave us a big thumbs up for the conditions, while Geoff, Nicky and I did a collective eyebrow raise. Tomas also seemed unconcerned about the wave, saying it was way high and wouldn’t affect us. To be fair, he is a professional balloon pilot and spends a lot of time high, so must know a thing or two about these conditions.

Once up at the top, we could see the wave dissipating, but we still waited until after 3pm until we all took off. Conditions were very bouyant and you could easily get high, but cloudbase wasn’t high enough to easily get to Olot and the clouds there looked more ominous anyway. Nicky was the low save queen of the day, getting up from very low down twice and thermalling past the rest of us!

Nice day out, although sad to have to say farewell. It was good practice for later… We went for goodbye dinner at my parents and had to say cheerio to them and Debi too.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: each day, the forecast for the next day is good, but then gets worse the closer we get. Today, there were big clouds threatending rain all day. In the end, there were just a few spots of rain, but the clouds were very big. We did attempt an evening flight, but even then the clouds were still towering, so in the end decided not to bother.
 

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Geoff writes: another day of poor weather. It seems increasingly likely the weather here will get good just as we move back to the UK, where the weather will promptly get bad.

So today was a day of packing (at least it was for me – Judith went for lunch with her parents, then stocked up on alcohol for the summer). Later on, in the evening, Roger and Marc came round for a very pleasant evening with dinner.

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The forecast today looked unlikely, but there was an outside chance it would work. That chance seemed less likely when I spotted a cunim over El Mont at 11.30am (10.30 really given that the clocks have only just changed), which seemed a tad early and didn’t bode well. So all plans for flying at Sant Pere de Rodes were ditched and plan B was to drive past Santa Brigida, if it was flyable we’d do that, if not, we’d head to the beach.

With the big development all around us, we decided to do a job first and go to Olot to argue with Telefonica to get our land line back. They were actually very helpful, but don’t get me started on Jazztel…

Then off to Santa Brigida, where the wind was too strong, from the NW and with a massive cloud sitting above it. How many more inidicators do you need that it’s NOT flyable? As we drove towards Girona/the coast, the clouds just got blacker and more ominous. Then it started pouring. We ditched the beach plan and decided to go into town and visit Jesus in hospital. He’s recovering from his nine hour operation to fix his pelvis, and is sitting up reasonably comfortably. He won’t be able to walk for three months, but is expected to make a full recovery.

Afterwards we went for a quick walk round town and a sandwich before coming home to start the packing for our return to the UK next week.

See photos of today.

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The forecast for today was rubbish, but Dai had said to Geoff that today might not be as bad as forecast. We woke up to leaden skies and the radar showed widespread showers. The webcams at the coast showed rain too, so we stayed in bed for the morning, until we realised that it was much later than we thought… of course we’re in summer time now!

The sky started clearing from about 11am, but it was never clear if you could trust the conditions and it was windy as well. We stayed in and did some painting. The ceiling on our top floor is now nice and white. We’ve also started packing and sorting for the trip back to the UK. What I don’t get is how we can have a clear out every six months and still accumulate so much crap!

It never did rain so the forecast was completely wrong (and Dai was right). We’re hoping for a flyable day tomorrow before the bad weather returns on Tuesday.

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Geoff writes: the forecast changed a lot overnight, in terms of wind direction, and so rather than go to El Mont, it seemed a better bet to go to Bellmunt, which we duly did with Nils and Mark, meeting up with Joan too. We went up, and there were already a few people flying and getting up, with some nice cloud development. I was the first to launch of our group, and it didn’t seem too rough, and there was plenty of lift. I was pretty determined to cross the pass to Olot, at least, if not go further. The problem was that cloudbase was only about 2500′ above take off, about 6200′ above sea level, and I wasn’t at all confident about making it over the pass – it’s a few kilometers to actually reach the pass, and if you don’t get something on the way, you’ll be below it, in some very inhospitable territory, with very few landing options other than trees. So after three attempts, getting to base each time, hoping that base would rise (but it didn’t) I gave up on that idea.

The clouds were getting bigger and more developed, and I eventually decided to go and land – Judith and Joan had already landed. It took me a while to get down, there was plenty of lift, but I managed to also find enough sink, and I got down ok. The overdevelopment continued rapidly, and an hour after I landed, whilst we were having our beer and sandwiches with Joan, there was no sun, but a lot of rain!

Great to see Nils again, and to meet Mark for the first time – both top class street performers, as you’ll see from their web sites if you click on their names!

See photos of today.

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We went skiing, possibly for the last time this season. The plan was to get up early and ski at Masella until 1pm, then meet up with Mike for a flight at Targasonne. We did hit the slopes at 9.30am, but the sunshine meant that it was already slushy on the lower runs. On our third run the cloud from the weak occluded front came in and this dampened that slush at the top, so the skiing was ok. We hooked up with Debi at 11.30am, but the increasing wind meant that it wasn’t worth travelling across to France.

My knees told me it was time to quit early afternoon and we headed home – in the drizzle!

Nils and Mark came to visit us in the evening, but because they came so early, we sent them to the tree house and labyrinth. I was in the middle of the supermarket getting dinner when I got a text saying ‘Very funny! How do we get out?’ which had me chuckling in the veg isle. We had nice dinner and a great catch up, but too much wine!

See photos of today.

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