Sunday 26th May

After yesterdays flight in Wales we were tempted to go back again but after close inspection of the weather we thought that mid country would offer the best conditions. Today's N/W winds can produce a 'Cheshire Gap' effect, where moist air funnels off the Irish sea down into the Midlands, suspecting this we decided to stay in the centre of the country, so we set Sherborne, in Dorset, then up to Grantham, via the Oxford M40 Services.
Some high cirrus top cover delayed our launch but once we noticed the K13 staying up in the blue launched at 11:30.
Conditions were blue over the site with just the hint of Cu forming.

Over the site with 'nice clouds' in the distance. On the climb out the air felt good so it was with confidence that we set out on track. On blue days you look down for thermal clues so we routed via al the suposed 'hot spots', villages, towns, down wind of villages, down wind of towns, pig farms, quarrys, nothing! 1500' a nibble a turn, nothing, 1200' a nibble, a turn, nothing. A forming cloud - in the Brize zone, we have to turn away back into the blue! 800' a village scrappy un workable lift, Little Rissington 3km on our right is our bolt hole, at 600'  we start our final glide in to Little Ris. Game over? The clouds, you can see in  the picture above tantalisingly close! 400' crossing the village of little Rissington, we hit 4kts to 4000'! Brillant motivational (?) encouragement from Graham (!) stating that currently we are only doing 40kph! Game on! Conected with the clouds south of Cirencester now it was a fast run down to Sherborne.

  Condition up to Oxford were good with regular 5kt climbs. Pushing north from Oxford conditions blued out again but we managed to stay high. Task speed was well in to the 80kph range now so we were still looking for a 17:30 finish and a bank holiday BBQ with the kids. (good for brownie points)

 At last we were going faster than some of the sail boats on Rutland Water! GP was Happy! Turned Grantham at 5500', climbed to nearly 6000' near Melton Mobray on the way home. Had to break off our final thermal at Hus Bos in order to glide under the 4500' Daventry CTA. Final glide home under total blue conditions for a 17:30 arrival.

517km, 87kph, 5:55 airborne, 3080 ladder points. A grand day out!