Tinto 19th February 2014

Not the nicest of days. Arrived early with Tommy due to road closure to an overcast sky, with sports of rain and moving clouds. We walked up green hill about halfway up to consider. Tommy did not like it but the wind felt reasonable to me so I took off. It was stronger than I had judged really and I got pinged up quite rapidly to the clouds. It was pretty bouncy at cloud level. I hung on soaring for a bit then thought I would go down and land.

I made a few beats down low and it felt OK, but very buoyant, but the wind soon picked up to the "now a bit nervous" level, so I pushed out over the field in front of take of to land. It took all my time to get down at the far end of the field. Arse. Packed up in the mud just as DT arrived and walked back to the hill for another flight.

Took of again with Tommy this time for a bit more flying. It was an odd one though. Not howling  but I think because it was so unstable (low pressure / wet) as well it felt very odd. Everything was going up and every direction felt like down wind. I top landed with some difficulty and thought I am going to struggle with the new glider. But Tommy followed me down and it looked like just as little fun for him.

After a run along the ridge and a bit more messing about we landed just Jamie and a big black cloud arrived. Jamie got his glider out and as an orchestra responds to a conductor so the weather responded with howling wind and spots of rain. Ah well, at least he did not get to experience it from the air. Gave up at that point, went to pick up DT and get some chips. Not really fun, but it got us both a bit more practice on our new gliders, so mission accomplished. That which dose not kill us makes us very worried instead.