Some great thermalling with Griffon vultures in Chia, though limted XC options due to threatening Cbs. An afternoon trip to Salamanca, and on return the village filling with XC open competitors.

Some interesting thermal flying at Chia, though stopped short by over development.   During the afternoon I went with Hans and Gaynor to remove a bee colony from somebodies bathroom near the square, but when we got there they had already made a massacre of bees with insecticide. Very sad.

Burkhart Martens (of the XC conditions book) was flying with us and was first off, getting the last thermal of take off to 3400m and allowing him to fly back to Piedrahita. The rest did a little soaring, landing at the bottom

Awesome sky, epic Cus around 4000m and wind over the back. Meanwhile, some kitty photos as requested by Pat. Young Zara has certainly come on since we were feeding her with a syringe in May.

A great day for our first XC with the new group. Star performers were Rene, Hans and Horst who all crossed the pass. Hans landed at Muñogalindo, and Horst a little before Muñana. Rene and I took 3hr45min, but we did spend a lot of time on the west of the pass trying to fly north before abandoning that plan and going on to Avila. Lin from Vietnam arrived for the evening flight, which was very gentle.

This week we have Germans, French, and an Israeli pilot. No Brits at all!. We all managed a great evening flight getting down through the lift just before dark. We flew over the bull fight in progress. Another band on in the square tonight as the town is in full fiesta mode.

There was a small risk of storms so we were away early, finding easy nice climbs from 12pm. Colin made off towards the Red Roof at Santa Maria de Berrocal, and somewhat later the rest of us followed. Strengthening winds on the ground made us decide to land, but later by mid afternoon they had calmed. We had an epice evening flight, with a run to the corrals, then for Colin and myself out to the small hills in front (Cerro la Cruz). A great end to a week with good quality flying every day.

Some good conditions cut short this morning by the growing clouds. In the Avila valley some big storms with hail stones up to 2cm. An evening flight 30 Minutes before dark, the evening restitution almost taking Colin on a longer trip than he wanted.

In the 17 years I have been here, we have only had an official landing field for a few brief months. Finally the town hall have sorted an excellent field just by the village, only about 100m from the house. The moment permission came through we staked our territory with windsocks.

Light NW with climbs to 3300m.  On the second XC flight most of us fizzled out at the Long Bar, but Mike took a mega climb to 3300m and crossed the pass, but landed at the same spot after the pass as on Monday.  An evening flight with some unusual cloud formations……..looking much like mamattus, but without the storm.  A bit unnerving, but smooth and OK.