Finally a bit of rain at the end of last week, good for the fields and fire risk problems, but which also washed away the snow at launch revealing evidence of an attempt to steal a section of the Astro turf. This is maddening. The turf has been professionally laid and glued to the concrete drainage channels and each piece (4m wide) joined by a special adhesive to its neighbour. For me that 3000m2 of turf is the culmination of 20 years of efforts to get a decent, clean and safe launch which we hoped would have a lifespan of decades. The financial cost has been considerable with around 30.000€ spent on moving earth to improve the gradient, plus the aquisistion of the turf (normally 20€ m2 but at a special price of 1€/m2, plus around 3000 € on transport and fixing adhesive.
The last step was to ballast the turf with sand (around 5kg /m2). This was not done last year as the comps arrived, then the town hall sort of got distracted. The sand is essential for good ball bounce, and more importantly for us to keep it down and make it more tricky for robbers to haul it away. The turf is actually very heavy even without the ballast and is not the sort of light green cloth with plastic grass you buy at hardware stores for your patio. The robbers used a knife to cut a section of about 10 X4 m which they tried to haul down the slope. Luckily it was too heavy for them, so it was abandoned half way down the slope. The repair wil be about 70€ (the cost of adhesive and joining tape). We also need to get 3 tons of sand up there as soon as possible. A thoughless action by somebody with a stanley knife wanting to save a few bob to carpet their barbeque area! Grrrrrrrr.

Nice flying weather this week so I have been getting up and doing plenty of flying (mainly corrals and back) and getting used to the rather alien limb hanging off my right shoulder. I have no forearm rotation and restricted elbow extenstion but that does not seem to make much difference for flying as my hand, at least, is facing the right way (OK for hand-shakes and paragliding, not good for typing, kayaking, piano playing etc). After the flying season I am booked into a hostpital in Barcelona so a hand and arm surgeon can reassemble my arm in a more correct manner.

The picture below show the take off having dragged the piece back into position. The cut piece is half the 2nd panel from the right. A little grey earth can be seen where it was cut.