Our last day of the season with clients and very nice conditions. I made a tandem flight this morning, easy to stay up with nice Cu´s, though a bit low. For the second flight the base was not much more than 2000m, but Bryan and I made a nice flight to Barco. Chris and Horst bombed around Santiago. The last flight offered not much as far as conditions went.
So, that is it for the year. Pigs cheek curry tonight for the guests then tomorrow just Bryan and I to enjoy the rest of the week (which flying wise is looking good). I will be continuing my building appreticeship with Master Builder Bryan, but hopefully we will get out for a little flying on the good days.

Saturday bought us enough rain to go on the river. In fact, there was so much water we had to run a section very high up the Tormes, very pretty, through pine forest, though not as interesting water as the usual section. Even so, everybody managed to spend quite a time out of the boat after being pitched in in the rapids.
Today, Sunday, is pretty much the end of our season. I took John back to the airport and Pete back to his mums place in Madrid. Our German guests are staying till Wednesday, then we will have our Spanish experience week (non flying) in a few weeks tiime. Bryan is staying on for a time with me to help with the construction of the house….in fact we have made a small start this afternoon.

John, Brian, Terry, Sandara and myself spent the moring climbing up to look at the iron age remains of the ancient village of Ulaca in the Ambles Valley. The weather has really closed in now so flying tomorrow also looks unlikely.

Strong SW winds. Puri took our walking clients and Bryan up the Gredos mountains. The others opted for Salamanca.

We started out at Lastra with the S forecast. Brian, myself and John flew, with me bombing early and John going over the back.
The next flight at Peña Negra with a light wind on the hill an Cus dotted behind launch and in the Avila Valley. Brian flew to the pass and most of the way back getting to around 2600m. Not bad for October. The evening flight was nice with some of the guys opting to fly down valley towards Villafranca.

Very light wind and thermal with blue skies. We did three flights, with the thermals not going to more than around 100m above the take off.

Sunday we had howling winds and some rain. However, by mid afternoon today the mountain cleared and we had some nice thermalling and soaring. Brian and I were able to get out to the river, then surf upwind in a clould streed then get back to Piedrahita for a mini-miniscule triangle. Fun though.

Today we had Thomas and Petra with us. They were with us during the XC open, and are with us till mid next week when they fly off to Brasil after which they will spend most of next year in Australia. Thomas myself and Juaquin made a good climb at the bottom of the big spine, but this gave us enought only to reach near Villafranca for a landing there.

That is what it looked like, but I had to do the MOT on the white van, do some beekeeping stuff and move a lot of rocks around the garden. We were due to fly late afternoon, but Thomas and Petra missed the bus from Madrid, so I ended up driving to Avila to collect them from there. Pete was tired after yesterdays efforts, so a bit of a non starter on the flying front. … a shame as it looked like the last classic day from Peña Negra of the year. Tomorrow stilll looking OK, but an early Lastra start.

Another great looking day with cloud streets along the Ambles valley. I flew with Pete and Juaquin, our local Civil Guard. Unfortunately Pete and Juaquin bombed at Casas del Puerto. As the retrieve was with Juaquins wife, I decided to fly home from the Pass, which, given the 5m/s climbs and light winds was pretty simple.