7th December 2010 - No news is not necessarily good news...

Nothing to report on the flying front, unfortunately. What with hectic doings at work, weather which has been less-than hospitable and the attempted theft of my car (which left it an undriveable write-off), things have been very quiet. For which read 'no flying'.

On the plus side, I have sourced a new car - a Jeep Cherokee. They are really good value at the moment - presumably because they guzzle petrol like there's no tomorrow.

I guess I should feel guilty about such a guzzler, but since I had no car at all untill I was in my late 30's - and made my living by teaching people to sail - I am thinking I have quite a lot of credit at the CO2 bank. In addition, to drive up and don France so regularly, I want something substantial and strong (hence the long line of old Mercs and Beemers). Plus, the field at which I'm keeping Elsi has an entrance track which was simply not possible in a saloon car - deeply rutted farm track. Add to that my intention to get on the water in a small daysailer - which we'll take to the lake on its trailer, then a 4x4 actually makes sense.

But I promise to feel guilty when going to Tesco's - or Carrefour, the French equivalent.

Here's a similar one to mine - it's not mine, so if you go Googling the reg plate you'll just be bothering some other poor person!

I've never been a petrol-head, but it does look kinda yummy. Most importantly, it has air-con . Roll on July!

15/11/2010 - see what I mean about the weather?

Here's the view from our flat this afternoon....

15/11/2010 - Frangalis weather

Heaving it down with rain, strong winds, low scudding cloud. I could have stayed in the UK for this! There's a window in the weather for Wednesday - at least I might be able to get down to the field and sort out my hangar space.

Oh, didn't I say? When we got there on Saturday, I opened the hangar to find, yes you guessed it, another aircraft in the hangar! Apparently there have always been 4 in there - not mentioned on the day I coughed up my deposit, of course... ho ho. Given the amount of remaining space, it may well turn out to be semi-rigged hangarage. Hmmm... well at least she's here and I have a toe in the door. Piccies on Wednesday I hope.

10/11/2010 The drive down through France. Probably not the best flying weather...

Ignore Daryl's comments about the speed of my driving... "Better late than dead on time, as my old Granny used to say."

Dover. The check-in lady said "if it was me, I wouldn't go..."

UK to France

Well, the idea was to fly-drive Elsi down to the South of France. Daryl Cornelius, intrepid Hampshire Microlight Flyer, had kindly offered to share the trip - one of us driving while the other flew a leg, then swapping over at regular intervals. That way I'd get the aircraft down to France, plus the car and trailer as well!

We wantred it to be a bit of an adventure - especially for me since my hours on a weightshift trike are quite limited - I like the idea of having some ground-based back-up if things should go awry. And hoped the weather would play ball.

In the end it didn't - we had gales and rain for the first day of the trip, then gradually improving weather, but still with strong winds, for the second. It turned into a driving Marathon! It is a long way down to the South when you can drive at speed - but it's a huge distance when you can only do 50 - 60mph with the trailer on the back!

More to come...