After dropping the Dunstable boys we managed to get back early again with the Malverns lot in time for the afternoon flight. On the drive back from Madrid there was a strong South to Avila, then a big convergence went from the Piedrahita valley and north east from the pass.

At take off the wind was almost zero, but after gliding though the shadow and sink to the valley light climbs below 2000m turned into massive lift seemingly everywhere to around 3500m to some overlarge Cus. Chris and I flew about 9km into wind in constant lift to escape the Piedrahita area, getting upwind of the large development. Dennis and Cliff had similarly rough lifty rides but were able to get down nearer to home. Quite a first flight for them, and for sure the biggest air I have encountered this year.

The late afternoon was filled in watching Alex try to pack away his hoop tent, and the evening settled down but was a bit too west for easy soaring. Peter, who I have been flying on the tandem for much of last week made his first solo flight here. Hopefully that will give him confidence for further flights this week, though we will probably keep doing the XCs on the tandem untill he has exorcised all of his ghosts (he had a bad accident landing here some 10 years ago)

Quite a slow start to the day, with little coming through til 3pm, then the wind becoming problematic and lighter and threatening to come over the back. I had a few aborted launches on the upper take off, having to go off below the road in the end. We soon got into a cracking climb with Graham, Kenny, John and Adam over the Chalets. Unfortunately back at launch conditions became even lighter, and Alex managed to wipe out 2 uprights on his Aeros Target hang glider while attempting a launch from the lower launch….Never mind he has 2 more spare, which should last him a few days more?

John Landed after about 14km, but the rest of us go an amazing climb at 3.5m/s average which allowed some of us to get to the goal of the day – Ice cream in Barco.

Teclas made another drawing of Grahams cravat day. The jitters came back and haunted him today as well on the way to Barco.

After, yet another, late night drinking at the Panera, the Dunstable boys may finally be reaching their alcohol intake limit. Even Graham look a bit off this morning and ducked out of the second flight.

Our first flight found good conditions on the hill, but the valley very stable. I was flying tandem with Peter, and we bombed at the bottom of the big spine. All the others landed back in town, perhaps Kenny making the best of it.

The second flight was only Kenny, John and Peter and I on the tandem. Great climbs to 2500m+ on hill and in valley. We stayed local, and landed after about an hour cruising locally.

The evening flight got a bit windy, but big dynamic lift and very smooth, with most of us landing after sunset.

Tomorrow promises a good day but with a bit of East, so Barco and the Cherry tree valley maybe!……….if the Panera bar doest claim victims of the whole group this evening.

A good forecast with a potential big distance flight, but with gnarly strongish winds at launch. We decided to give it a miss, even though 5 paragliders had launched (though demonstrated how windy it was out there). We plumped for an evening flight down the valley, some to the Villafranca junctions, but other sucked into the Long Bar with the promise of beer.

Tomorrow should be good with lighter winds and this new air mass moving in, demonstrated by the good Cu´s this afternoon.

This evening Alexander Kirk Wilson arrived with his two little dogs…….not a good thing for Fred. Also Peter arrived and flew his first tandem with me.

One of the splits form some months back is in a rather disorganised Langstroth hive, with a good number of bees but little brood as yet. Because it is unlikely I will get a harvest from them this year, I want them to go into winter in a home better organised by them, rather than the collection of old and new frames over two brood boxes.

I did the transfer to the Warré a little different than others. Previously I had been using the funnel, and shaking the frames into the top of the hive, then shaking bees clinging to the onto a cloth ramp leading to the entrance. In this instance I used a normal brood box with top bars with no starter strips and below a brood box with a hatch behind to put in a feeding bowl. All bees were shaken from the frames onto the ramp leading into the entrance.

Although each frame was checked before shaking, I was unable to see the queen or see her run in. On three frames there was uncapped brood, so I can assume a queen is present in the colony but has only recently began to lay.

After all the bees had entered and had clustered in the top brood box I opened the hatch and introduced a bowl with one frame of comb cut from their own provisions. I will continue to feed this colony back all their own honey to hopefully, rapidly establish them before the onset of winter.

During the morning I also added a box below one of the other Warrés which had now almost completed 2 boxes. Graham gave me a hand stabilizing the lift. Graham had tried to get involved in top bar beekeeping last year, but had been put off not just top bar beekeeping, but generally beekeeping by the club at Milton Keynes.

Teclas turned up this morning with a little award he had made for Adam for his personal best flight to Segovia. We landed right next to the city on a rise looking over the Cathedral.

Nice to finish the day over a thousand metres above Segovia admiring the aqueduct, cathedral and Alcazar. Only Adam and Graham made it over the pass, with Kenny almost doing so. Graham managed to have an encounter with some very rough air near Muñogalindo when a helicopter flew around 100m below him. A cravat, which finally came out left him looking for the comfort of mother earth. Adam and myself continued after Avila, and found it a struggle to get down to 3000m for the airspace (3600m before Avila). Although it was a blue day the climbs were strong and there were sections of lift covering many Kms.

Those in the group who had a short flight managed a pleasant evening flight using the white van while we were being retrieved. Kenny and Graham took full advantage of the facilities offered at the Muñogalindo bar whilst waiting for Adam and me to return form Segovia with Teclas.

We also made a good morning flight……..mainly to get Steve back into the right frame of mind after yesterdays reserve.

Conditions looked quite calm and stable for a late start today, very much suiting the Dunstable boys who had been out drinking heavily the night before. What looked like a struggle to stay up soon turned into excellent conditions with 3m average climbs and peaks of 5m with light winds. I noticed Steve on his Nova Ra leaving the climb at the bottom of the big spine on his way out to land at Piedrahita, the hang over being too much for him to carry on. A short time later after most of the group had climbed out Steve had a bit of an epic cascade on his glide out, and came down on his reserve in a nice field at the bottom of the big spine.

Most of the rest of the group finished around Villafranca, but Adam had a great climb out of the Quarry spine, and subsequently with me at the Cemetery. Unfortunately Adam landed at the Antenna near the pass after grappling with the climb there. I had maybe 50m more and was able to climb out, but landed with Adam at the Antenna.

An afternoon of tea, beer and reserve packing, as southerly winds came in to ruin the evening flight.

A great Cu filled sky by mid day, and very nice climbs in valley and hill, but increasing wind towards the pass. Only Kenny and myself went over the finding around 25km wind on the other side and bluer conditions and more turbulence. We decided to land at the bend in the road before conditions got stronger.

A great evening flight with most of the group doing the out and return ridge run

After dropping our mainly Irish group at the airport we got quickly back to Piedrahita with the Dunstable group for a 2pm take off. Never done in my memory, since we normally get back to late and only fly in the evening. They had been out till late the night before and with the early flight most had no more than 2 hours of sleep…..just enough to jump straight into 5m/s thermals and a base of 3200m. As Teclas was on his day off we did a valley circuit to Bonilla and back. I flew tandem with Juan, the forestry worker I had flown on Tuesday evening. He was quite blown away by the whole thing.

An evening flight, but very late as a strong wind came in during the late afternoon.