I've been watching the weekend forecast for most of the week. Nothing new there.. On Tuesday the weekend was looking flyable. By Friday night it looked like there was a chance of a fly about in the morning but a tad by mid afternoon.

Back from France, and Jamie did the early groundwork with a message that Tues & Thurs might be flyable. Best of all, forecast was westerly and possibly Sundhope, a site I love flying, so rearranged work and life to head down for early evening on the Thurs. Many times the initial promise fails to materialise, but on this occasion it was way better than expected and gave a fantastic introduction to the Borders and Scottish flying to our Korean visitor, Woo Hee Lee and his wife Mi Sun.

Drinking coffee, eating muesli and checking the weather revealed a fair few sites possible so a text from Dorita to say her and Quinton were off to Broughton with space for me in their hill climbing tonka truck brought the struggle to an obvious conclusion. High noon found me multi-tasking again loading my glider into said truck, putting on the suntan cream and gulping an early lunch.

Well what a mixed bag experience in my first ever 'competition' and first proper thermic flights in the Alps. Wasn't sure what to expect and this was a full-on week of activity, with plenty of opportunity to learn, but also some pretty scary moments along the way: we had four reserves thrown and several helicopter rescues for tree landings in the week, plus some dramatic footage of a Delta collapsing and tumbling through the gaggle, but thankfully no serious injuries. But don't let that put you off trying it - each pilot decides their own safety margins and there is an excellent organising team to provide expert knowledge and support.