The pre-Euros were a great success from my perspective. On the podium were Blay in first, Martin Harry in second and my sweetie in third. Carl needed to stay consistent on the last day and suspected that at least one pilot above him would over race considering how close the scores were between the top four. In the end, both Primoz and Jonny race themselves to the ground and with Carl making goal, that moved him into third. He was very pleased! Kathleen Rigg ended up top female at 13th overall. She's doing some brilliant flying!!
Blay Senior gave a very sweet speech on Jr.'s behalf because, as he explained "My son doesn't speak so well ;-)" thanking Moyes and Blay's mentors.
We started off the British Nationals with two great days. Day 1 was particularly good for me because I made goal!! For anyone that's been to Ager, you know that it can be a bit turbulent and there are many areas where we fly tasks that have more unlandable terrain than I would prefer. So, I was awfully nervous the first day. I have to send a special thank you to Kathleen who gave a priceless bit of advice before she headed back to the UK. She told me to just keep telling myself "turbulence equals fun!" That was my mantra for the first day. There were times, especially during the big gorge crossing to the east, where the air was not at all the way I like and her advice worked beautifully. Between that and having young Myles with me for nearly the whole first task, I managed to make my way to goal, slowly, but surely. At the briefing the next day, Carl and I got his and hers matching Buffs for our story of "love and romance" from the Meet Director. The story goes like this - Carl radio'd me from goal saying that conditions were good coming in and it was lifty over the goal field, so he would thermal up and come back for me. I was 20 km out at that point and by the time he reached me, I only had 4 km to go. But, it was very very sweet of him. At least that's what I thought until he literally started flying circles around me ;-) I have a few lessons to learn about that VG rope.
The second day was an exercise in patience and determination, both of which I am lacking. I'm sure that's why the universe serves up days like this for me. Three times when I got way below launch, I headed out to the bomb out field to give up only to find a big fat thermal that took me up above launch again. Unfortunately, the glide back to the hill was less than great and I would arrive back there too low to head over the back and on course. On the fourth attempt, I finally made it over but was not happy to see that I was completely alone. Scary prospect for a big chicken who has never gone over the back into what looked very much like a no man's land with absolutely no flat fields and no sloped ones that looked even close to big enough to land in. Oh well, off I went anyway, staying as high as I possibly could and repeating my mantra. The going over the back experience was good, but that was about as far as it went. I made the first turnpoint and headed across the mountains to the only landable valley I could see. Serious land suck came from the gorgeous flat fields there and I succumbed. Not 10 minutes later young Myles appeared again to my delight. Seems he was with me in spirit again on day 2.
Yesterday, what would have been task 3 was cancelled after driving up, rigging and waiting around on the hill for the afternoon. The wind started out ok, but was forecasted to increase and it did. In the end, 2 crazies flew and the rest of us derigged. Some headed to the lake for a dip in the cool blue water. I love this place.
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