Just a quick post tonight. We made the most of sunshine this weekend, with an exciting day trip to Milton Keynes (hey, we know how to party) and some Jess photos in the garden:

Incidentally, I note that someone gave the last lot of photos only a one star rating. I'm not telling Jess, she'll be most disappointed.

Aside from taking pictures of her, we've been enjoying chatting. We're getting better at translating Jessese into English. We were very impressed when she spontaneously said "Ducks go quack" on Saturday night. We're not sure if that's clever word combining, or good phrase repetition from memory. Either way, can't complain.

The other cool trick she did was yesterday morning when we rediscovered a missing piece of a wooden peg puzzle - bit like these - it was a cockerel which we'd lost only a couple of days after we got the puzzle at a car boot about three weeks ago. We gave it to Jess and she said "Cock!", which we thought was an excellent demonstration of long term recall (and not swearing).

The other excitement was on Sunday, when I went gliding. Mum bought me a trial gliding trip for Christmas through Red Letter Days, which was a super present. I've been waiting for good weather to book it, and was nearly out of time last month, so finally booked for yesterday. With this July having already been the wettest in history, I wasn't holding out much hope, but yesterday started fairly bright, and got brighter.

So, having got to the airfield and been briefed, at around 2pm, I put on my parachute and got into the K21 glider with Alan, the instructor. We were towed by a tug plane up to 2,000 feet and released for a short flight of 13 minutes. I did a bit of simple manoeuvring (level flight, level turns, forced stall etc) before handing control back for the landing. Alan seemed pleased with my performance, and for me it compared very favourably to the trial flying lesson that I got a year or so back. So much so, that when I was offered the chance to join Alan as observer while he took a flight for himself, I didn't hesitate!

After another aerotow to 2,000 feet again, we chased some quite strong thermals to reach the cloudbase at about 4,800 feet above Brackley, and enjoyed the view for about 80 miles! Soaring between thermals, Alan was kind enough to let me fly for a while, and practise picking up thermals myself, which I managed to do - just about! Eventually, we came back down to the airfield, and with that I'd logged another 57 minutes in the air. Sadly no photos - since you're strapped tightly in, cameras are considered a bit risky in case they fall and jam something mechanical!

I was delighted with the experience, and would gladly do it again and recommend it to others. It was at a small and friendly club, Aquila Gliding Club, and they have a good value 'learn to fly' package which is sorely (pun resisted) tempting. I need to save some money first though!