Flight

The day almost started that way: as I drove away from my dad's house in Standlake, an old lady pulled out of a driveway without looking and bashed my van. Bizarrely, rather than pulling out in front of me, she waited until I was almost past, and hit the rear wheel and corner. It still seemed to drive in an straight line, so after using a lot of tape to stick bits of her front end together, off I went to Malvern.

A Sussex team was already there -- Steve P, Carlo, Nick Jones and Vincent. It was very light and off to the south, but occasional cycles came through. The bottom landing field had a few visits. My wing was still in its bag when Steve took a punt and found a climb, joined quickly by Carlo and half a dozen others; up and off they went. I thought I'd missed the only bus of the day, but nearly an hour later I saw a Gradient just about climbing, and a bird circling between him and launch, so off I went. The bird was in the right place, the Gradient joined me there, and we were on our way.

But where to? At the north end of the Malvern ridge we wandered about a bit, not sure what the wind was doing, and noticing top cover coming in from the south-west. Eventually, as I headed back to the northernmost peak, Gradient man went past me shrugging uncertainly (he went on to do 60k including a 40k out-and-return, so I should have stuck with him). I topped up in a slow but steady climb, which the top cover was not spoiling, then wandered north-east. But after that I found only scraps, and came down near Bromyard for another 20k.

I'd printed myself a new hitching sign, and it worked well. First an old gentleman in a home-made three-wheeler with no luggage space at all took me halfway to Malvern. Then I quickly got a ride to Malvern Link station, from where I reached Colwall after a stop at Great Malvern for tea and bread pudding. It's 1km across the fields from Colwall Station to the Kettle Sings car park, if anyone's wondering.