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Sisteron valley from 10,000ft
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At last, after days of waiting, a decent day appeared where
weather, glider and pilots were all present and correct at the same time.
Jean-Pierre's met briefing offered a steadily increasing north-westerly
wind,
promising ridge and wave, but little sunshine. We took an early launch onto
the Gache and started our wave hunt. Several forays across the valley failed
to produce anything useable, but we always had our home ridge to fall back
to for another go. It got a little busy for a few minutes when the
Booker boys from Serres raided the Gache, but they soon continued on their
way, leaving us to our wave hunting exercise.
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We decided to take a look at the Jabron valley, mainly to see
what our new house looks like from the air, but just before we got there we
found 3 knots of good wave which took us to FL75 enabling us to progress to
the gorge de Meouge, where we took another climb to the local limit of
FL115. Just to ensure there was no chance of an airspace-bust, the weather
god positioned some solid mid-level stratus at FL114.
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G-RIEV
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Je suis un rock-star
"Yes...I think I WILL have a fourth
helping..."
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There was a lot of murky weather about and getting much
higher at that time was a doubtful proposition, but we did explore the
Aspres area for gaps and lift, failing to find either. Falling back to
Chabre, we spent a few minutes on a photo session with Bob Grieve and his
excellently personalised LS8.
And so to dinner. Once again we had wangled some places at
Valerne's world-renowned paella night, where I discovered that pastis makes
an excellent alternative to paracetemol as a pain-killer - after a glass or
three I was no longer able to feel my legs (...so no change there ...). In
the background the house band played an eclectic set, leaning heavily on U2
and Pink Floyd for inspiration.
The food was once again excellent, consisting of multiple
helpings of paella, salad, cheese, desert, coffee and limitless wine. In
fact, there was so much food available that I was wondering whether a
hundred guests could actually finish it all, but thankfully Wendy, and
particularly Alan, had just arrived from Blighty, so we knew that there
would be no chance of left-overs.
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