So the BOS of in south wales guaranteeing atrocious bank holiday weather and Nev has convinced me to join an early start at Milk Hill on the Monday in the hope of a 305km goal.
Inevitably the weather doesn't meet expectations with a 2 hour delay due to the high cloud and zintillions of PG's in the light southerly breeze.
Nev, Ollie, Malcolm and Nigel are flying before I finally decided to join the circus. No PG's on the back ridge by this time as they have all walked over to the front ridge in the lulls. Nigel lands soon after I take off leaving Malcolm and I to work what we can.
A few reasonable bubbles later and I'm also on the front ridge with Nev and the floppies. The wind is picking up as the floppies are getting more static. The good news is that the thermals are better on the front as always so I'm soon drifting off downwind on my own.
I make the mistake of going downwind to a long line of cloud instead of heading east to Marlborough. Inevitably the clouds are shutting down again and I dribble past the east side of Swindon trying to stay airborne. Eventually a good climb gets me back to cloudbase but there is the little problem of Brize completely blocking my route.
Cross and slightly into wind to the next cloud works, but soon have to move on. Fortunately there seemed to be good areas of lift which means I finally reach the corner of the airspace. However I'm not very high and despite all the lovely conurbation and the A34 buzzing with traffic nothing works and I soon end up grounded in a huge riverside common at Oxford.
Fortunately Hamish was willing to rack up his Volvo and fetches myself and Nev. Nev gave up on the planned route and went the other way but decided to stop at Cirencester to ease the retrieve.
Must remember to mount up the camera next time...
