I came, I soar, I went.

This fashionably late post continues the story of my gliding adventures into the 2021 season.  Everything had been set up for the previous year to be the one in which I entered my first rated gliding competition. Silver badge done, some exposure to inter-club competition, club task weeks and a little bit of other cross country practice meant that the only thing to do would be to get on with it. Unfortunately the pandemic put paid to that, so I would do it in 2021 instead. We fly year round at Sutton Bank; with ridge and wave opportunities making sure that we have soaring opportunities at any time of year - I think I have said before that we are very lucky. Unfortunately, this weather can't be guaranteed, and being on the top of a hill does mean that we can also be snow and fog bound in the darker months, seemingly for weeks at a time. This is not really the time of year to use days off from work to go flying, so you take your chances that the weekend will throw up something that is

Well, it has been a while hasn't it? Between pandemics, parenting, work and every other thing that takes up my time I am afraid I have neglected this blog - and I had always intended to keep it at least somewhat up to date with my gliding adventures. The idea of it was that it was something to reminisce over later, or perhaps it might inspire someone who stumbled across it to take their gliding to another level, or just to take up the sport at all. I currently find myself laid up with a bad back, which my gliding friends attribute (without proof!) to my trailer, however I think it's altogether more likely that it's down to lifting a wriggly toddler into and out of the car. But anyway, since I can't do an awful lot else, it seems like a good opportunity to go through the logbook and see if I can find some interesting things to write about - and get this blog caught up with things. The last flight I wrote about was July 2020, and according to my logbook, that wasn't t