Yesterday wasn’t a good day for me….How about you?
Why is it that other people get good flying and I get the dross?
And doesn’t your self esteem take a dive when you come out at the bottom of the barrel at the end of what should have been a universally glorious flying day?…
I just don’t know….
I guess that you just have to accept that, rightly or wrongly, in this sport, which I now hate with a passion….you are measured by the distance that you produce on the day…and that… like it or lump it, is the yardstick you just can’t avoid being measured by….and that is why I hate…
John Wallis
Jim Bittlestone
Chris Foster, Lloyd Bailley, Gary Stenhouse,Ian Miskin……In fact I hate everybody.
If don’t walk the walk….then I guess that you can’t talk the talk….
And perhaps that’s why nobody ever listens to me
And you know what it is?.....I have no desire to be good pilot…..I just want to be a lucky pilot….they are the ones that have all the fun at my expense….
Present aforementioned list not included….Or better still given the benefit of the doubt for the time being saying that I’m in a bad mood
Put yourself in my shoes, just for a minute, and imagine yourself at the bottom of the stack for the better part of the day, when others are either at cloudbase or going over the back as if World War three had been declared in Kirkland….Miskim is three miles out front and still higher than you…..and then……and then…..
Even finally….you get some lift,(I believe they call them thermals ) but you just know that, that lift is going to disappear at exactly the moment that you reach the top of Cross Fell…..I wont go on, it would only bore you…
To make a long story short, I finished up soaring a gulley deep down behind, and at the bottom of Cross Fell….Even Google earth won’t go there….Greencastle….
The end of the world…..history was repeating itself…..
Twenty years ago, I landed there on a hang-glider, and had the audacity to carry down the hill, across the river, and up the other side, to take off and get a good thrashing down to the ground again.
Fools rush in!
Amazingly enough, I soared this gulley for a canny time, working my way towards the direction of the Alston road, which was only three miles away…..But as fate would have it I was soon on the deck, bagged up and ready for two miles of tufty grass walkout…
Lucky old me!
Perhaps they could hear me singing in Alston….
Ha ha ha, Ho ho ho, and a couple of Fa la la’s
That’s how we laugh the day away
In the merry old Land Of Oz
Join in the chorus if you wish!
But It wasn’t all bad news though….two hours later, still humping up steep hills I met a beautiful blonde in a little campervan….she offered me sex, or a lift…..
I took the lift….Wouldn’t you?
The little water wheel in the Rotherhope Mine…….Somewhere at the end of the known world
Losers Retreat
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Jim Bittlestone
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Well said Chris, if I can do this sport for as long as John has I'll be a happy man. Every dog has its day.
Last edited by Jim Bittlestone on Thu Sep 24, 2009 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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colin keightley
- BHPA Club Coach
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- Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:22 pm
- Full Name: Colin Keightley
- Location: Stockton
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Whining like the proverbial 5th gear of your car, after I have been driving it John, again!
Some people just dont know their born........?
I spent Sunday like a couch slug, semi clad, fuzzy hurting head.
I managed to haul my carcass off the sofa at around 1pm only to
reheat some delivered chinese food two days old. Then back to the
horizontal, dressing gown not quite covering the saggy scrotum, not
bothering to fix myself as the house is all to Sam and I.
Snooze,........ watch TV....... scratch..... through blurred fuzzz and semi
consciousness,............I recall the sun must have been shining as.........
well it was not dark.
Kids arrive back home with grandma at 5pm,............ fix exposed scrotum 5.01pm.
It then got dark.......
All for a few stolen moments of apparent sophistication and
entertainment, the night/morning before.
How can you tell you are having it good, if you never have it bad?
Go sell miserable wasted day elsewhere John, were all stocked up back here.
Some people just dont know their born........?
I spent Sunday like a couch slug, semi clad, fuzzy hurting head.
I managed to haul my carcass off the sofa at around 1pm only to
reheat some delivered chinese food two days old. Then back to the
horizontal, dressing gown not quite covering the saggy scrotum, not
bothering to fix myself as the house is all to Sam and I.
Snooze,........ watch TV....... scratch..... through blurred fuzzz and semi
consciousness,............I recall the sun must have been shining as.........
well it was not dark.
Kids arrive back home with grandma at 5pm,............ fix exposed scrotum 5.01pm.
It then got dark.......
All for a few stolen moments of apparent sophistication and
entertainment, the night/morning before.
How can you tell you are having it good, if you never have it bad?
Go sell miserable wasted day elsewhere John, were all stocked up back here.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
How good was Sunday??????
What a great day out - Xfell at it's best nil wind to howling all in the space of an hour or two 
After diving across to Wild Boar things were much better, it's far better at catching the lift than high cap, we had a nice climb out with Chris and John until they pulled back to the ridge and left me to drift back with the climb to the summit of Xfell. Somehow they knew there was a boomer coming along and soon I was looking up at them as they zapped over to me as I still struggled upwards in my weak one. Once at clowdbaste we all had different ideas John blasted on South and I headed into wind and ran the edge of the cloud street before cutting across for the sheep pens and the sunshine. I figured that I was going to end lower but any climbs wouldn't spit me out too far back over the back of the hill.
I had plans for a triangle starting from just south of the Great Dun radar and took that after a gentle climb that drifted me into sector over Chris and John who looked to be soaring one of the shelves on the gentle face of the moor.
With the wind feeling too strong to push back over the shallow slopes and the sky looking superb I was in a bit of a dilemma - it looked sooooo good over the back. And then radio Geordie started. Wallis at Angels 5, Wolf at 4000 and going, there seemed to be about 4 Gary Stenhouse's all talking to each other and all in the same Clowd. Don't go without me!!!!!! But by then it was too late, pushing into wind in the gully over the road had sucked all the height out of my poor glider and looking back at John and Chris it looked like they had settled onto that ledge for the afternoon. Balls - it's windy. Below the golf balls are shallow slopes that I would never be able to push out over but a ledge below the top and some mine workings gave me a route north. All the time I’m jealously watching RonDon sensibly keeping to the lower forward ridge. Getting to the gully just to the south of Wild Boar I was feeling all a bit MadDog about things, it wasn't going to work, I'm looking at a rocky gully into a howling wind and no chance of making that jump. Off the lower ridge The Don showed the way circling upwards in a decent thermal that was beating the laminar wind. Pushing forward was easy, once in the thermal there was no need to thermal - lots and lots of inline lift - nice. OK its 6 up I'll do a few turns.
Garys still in that clowd - does Dave have visual? – Who’s got the car keys? - they are just going to drift with it - Arggggggggg shut-bluddy-up!!!!!! The leads come out the radio in one blissful fist-full
On we go onto Wild Boar and a cloud street ahead points the way out to my turnpoint near the lake. Straight line on half-bar this will be easy, there will be screaming lift out there neeee bother. Wrong, God paragliders are slow! The GPS is working in slow motion and the altimeter is winding down like a fruit machine, press on, be lucky. With the turnpoint taken I'm too low to glide back to the ridge, I know there is no thermal en-route…. what to do? Keep heading out and find one my brain says; turn round and have a shorter walk for an evening flight my body says. So around I turn and look up at the hill, look up at the beautiful clouds. One has a lowish sailplane and I think positive thoughts at I head for it enjoying the drone of the sink alarm as I go. a zeroish-downish thing gets me and all I have to do is drift - it will kick off those foothills, its going to be OK! There’s a couple of buzzards circling just over there - over to them, BAD mistake MUCH worse NOT happy........ I'm on the deck now looking across at the tops of the low hills at the base of Wild Boar harness dragging through the bracken, just, just maintaining as a Golden cruises overhead, then Fozzy goes over as I chase the gusts in the bracken leaves, then it's easy – we’re up! Looking around there are gliders specked out everywhere, Watson's just cruising North there's folk in orbit way forward. On to High Cap and it's not working and I'm all tangled up in the hang gliders, sorry guys! Soon we're thermalling out with Dave Hume, at least 10 years since we did that
and its a high cruise over Man-at-Edge, Melmerby bowl towards Watson and Cleasby both way high at the radars where my turnpoint should be. Ed's gone way north as far as the road and is climbing in under a cloud street, it's well windy now and I want to get south to close the triangle before it blows out. Ed leads and makes it look easy staying high on the back route. Watson crosses the bowl south of Melmerby REALLY low, I haven't got the nerve in this wind and try the front route, all I do is get pinned and sink ending up taking the back route low and worried. I needn't have, plenty of lift and a cracking thermal put me in a good position to head back to Dun Fell and finish the triangle with Ed straight lining at cloud base towards Knock Pike.
Heading back to the car I can't get past the top of Wild Boar and do a little body surfing over the moor before carrying down the face to r-launch with Sten for an evening boat about.
The first time for ages I've enjoyed classic Xfell - what a day......
After diving across to Wild Boar things were much better, it's far better at catching the lift than high cap, we had a nice climb out with Chris and John until they pulled back to the ridge and left me to drift back with the climb to the summit of Xfell. Somehow they knew there was a boomer coming along and soon I was looking up at them as they zapped over to me as I still struggled upwards in my weak one. Once at clowdbaste we all had different ideas John blasted on South and I headed into wind and ran the edge of the cloud street before cutting across for the sheep pens and the sunshine. I figured that I was going to end lower but any climbs wouldn't spit me out too far back over the back of the hill.
I had plans for a triangle starting from just south of the Great Dun radar and took that after a gentle climb that drifted me into sector over Chris and John who looked to be soaring one of the shelves on the gentle face of the moor.
With the wind feeling too strong to push back over the shallow slopes and the sky looking superb I was in a bit of a dilemma - it looked sooooo good over the back. And then radio Geordie started. Wallis at Angels 5, Wolf at 4000 and going, there seemed to be about 4 Gary Stenhouse's all talking to each other and all in the same Clowd. Don't go without me!!!!!! But by then it was too late, pushing into wind in the gully over the road had sucked all the height out of my poor glider and looking back at John and Chris it looked like they had settled onto that ledge for the afternoon. Balls - it's windy. Below the golf balls are shallow slopes that I would never be able to push out over but a ledge below the top and some mine workings gave me a route north. All the time I’m jealously watching RonDon sensibly keeping to the lower forward ridge. Getting to the gully just to the south of Wild Boar I was feeling all a bit MadDog about things, it wasn't going to work, I'm looking at a rocky gully into a howling wind and no chance of making that jump. Off the lower ridge The Don showed the way circling upwards in a decent thermal that was beating the laminar wind. Pushing forward was easy, once in the thermal there was no need to thermal - lots and lots of inline lift - nice. OK its 6 up I'll do a few turns.
Garys still in that clowd - does Dave have visual? – Who’s got the car keys? - they are just going to drift with it - Arggggggggg shut-bluddy-up!!!!!! The leads come out the radio in one blissful fist-full
On we go onto Wild Boar and a cloud street ahead points the way out to my turnpoint near the lake. Straight line on half-bar this will be easy, there will be screaming lift out there neeee bother. Wrong, God paragliders are slow! The GPS is working in slow motion and the altimeter is winding down like a fruit machine, press on, be lucky. With the turnpoint taken I'm too low to glide back to the ridge, I know there is no thermal en-route…. what to do? Keep heading out and find one my brain says; turn round and have a shorter walk for an evening flight my body says. So around I turn and look up at the hill, look up at the beautiful clouds. One has a lowish sailplane and I think positive thoughts at I head for it enjoying the drone of the sink alarm as I go. a zeroish-downish thing gets me and all I have to do is drift - it will kick off those foothills, its going to be OK! There’s a couple of buzzards circling just over there - over to them, BAD mistake MUCH worse NOT happy........ I'm on the deck now looking across at the tops of the low hills at the base of Wild Boar harness dragging through the bracken, just, just maintaining as a Golden cruises overhead, then Fozzy goes over as I chase the gusts in the bracken leaves, then it's easy – we’re up! Looking around there are gliders specked out everywhere, Watson's just cruising North there's folk in orbit way forward. On to High Cap and it's not working and I'm all tangled up in the hang gliders, sorry guys! Soon we're thermalling out with Dave Hume, at least 10 years since we did that
and its a high cruise over Man-at-Edge, Melmerby bowl towards Watson and Cleasby both way high at the radars where my turnpoint should be. Ed's gone way north as far as the road and is climbing in under a cloud street, it's well windy now and I want to get south to close the triangle before it blows out. Ed leads and makes it look easy staying high on the back route. Watson crosses the bowl south of Melmerby REALLY low, I haven't got the nerve in this wind and try the front route, all I do is get pinned and sink ending up taking the back route low and worried. I needn't have, plenty of lift and a cracking thermal put me in a good position to head back to Dun Fell and finish the triangle with Ed straight lining at cloud base towards Knock Pike.Heading back to the car I can't get past the top of Wild Boar and do a little body surfing over the moor before carrying down the face to r-launch with Sten for an evening boat about.
The first time for ages I've enjoyed classic Xfell - what a day......
Last edited by Misk on Thu Sep 24, 2009 7:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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John Watson
- Regular
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- Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:00 pm
- Location: North Shields
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John Wallis
- Seasoned
- Posts: 4072
- Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:17 pm
- Location: Northumberland
He He good write up Ian was a pity not to catch up with you and your lass afterwards but my retrieve came in the shape of Dave Valley's son Simon who took me back to Corbridge where the beer was so I missed out on all the post flight speel. Was good to see you man!
JW
JW
Livetrack24 wannyjollis
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”