Being Relaxed

This area of France has a reputation of being relaxed. The locals aren't terribly 'deadline focused' and most planning involves the dreaded word 'normalement' (which means 'in principle' rather than 'normally'). 'Doucement le matin, pas trop vite le soir' is how the rest of France characterizes things (slowly in the morning, not too fast in the evening). 

Usually, it is charming. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating. Occasionally, it can be almost bizarre. Twice this year local commerces couldn't be bothered - despite prompting - actually preparing a bill, so I found myself walking around with thousands (yes, thousands) of Euros worth of unpaid goods before I was finally given the opportunity of paying for them.

I've just started on a 3 day work week and aim to make myself as relaxed as the locals…

Waiting for spring...

The winter has been pretty long in St Andre, and although I've managed a few flights, I'm well behind on my 'normal flying hours' for this time of year. While tomorrow looks promising, today was too gray / humid / windy to attempt aviation. So I had yet another day of winter activities, a long snowshoe hike up the Pic de Chamatte.

It felt more like a hill-walking day in Scotland - completely overcast and windy. But cloud-base was about 100m above the summit - in Scotland it would have been in the clouds! Horribly sugary snow on the way up and even worse on the way down (though safe from an avalanche perspective). Hopefully, that's the last time I'll be using my snow-shoes this side of summer…

A few B&W pics.

The Luberon

On the way back from Barcelona, my daughter and I spent a couple of days hiking in the Luberon. It's not very far from where I live, but it's different - more Provence and less Alps. Warmer as well, with no snow! 

It's an area made famous by Peter Mayle (via A Year in Provence) and the countryside is very cute. It all seems a bit gentrified, with hardly any run down buildings. A bit like the Cotswolds, but with better food and weather!

A few pics from one hike.

Barcelona Visit

My daughter and I spent a very enjoyable few days in Barcelona. After the snow in St Andre, it was very nice to stroll around in shirt sleeves and admire palm trees. Wonderful architecture, good weather, a big city with a beach and very welcoming locals! Maybe because the local language (Catalan) isn't spoken anywhere else, the locals spoke really good English and enjoyed doing so. Highly recommended! A few pics.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible...

After a few non-flying days (wet and windy) the weekend might just be flyable so I started checking the forecasts tonight. One of the sites is undergoing maintenance and had a rather nice way of saying so...

The Start of the End of Winter - I hope!

February has been very cold but mostly clear and sunny. All very scenic, but I've been getting fed up with all the snow and ice - winter has been dragging on. The last couple of days have been a little warmer and today was positively spring-like. Even better, spring-like with a decent flying forecast at the weekend!

I considered flying locally but I wasn't sure if the road to the top was clear of snow. I would walk up anyway, but if the road was blocked I'd be flying by myself and that feels pretty lonely in winter. So I headed to Greolieres, where I met a bunch of Nice based pilots and also Frode, a Norwegian I've flown with a couple of times.

Greolieres is a very special site; you can read more about it here. It's a hard site to get away from (because of airspace restrictions), and most flights are rather relaxed affairs and mine was no exception. I flew E along the main ridge, with lots of lift and wonderful views (snowy mountains to the L, the Med to the R). On one side of the ridge it's almost springtime, and warm air is coming up the Loup valley from the Med; on the other, skiers are waving at you and there's a cold meteo wind from the N.  After almost 90 minutes I landed for lunch before catching the last flight of the day - 30 minutes ground skimming in much lighter conditions.

Some more pics.

Getting cold feet

Although you get good flying in the winter in St Andre, it's a bit of an acquired taste. You've got to overcome the snow to get to launch, fly by yourself over daunting terrain (no-one else is crazy enough to do it) and - of course - endure the cold. Apart from that, it's a barrel of laughs…

The forecast was for some good flying this weekend and I haven't had much air-time recently, so I decided to brave the elements on Saturday. I tried to avoid the worst of the snow by going up the west side of the mountain (from Moriez) but there was still plenty of it. I arrived at launch with damp feet, had a chilly lunch and launched into a stiff breeze. 

There was lift everywhere and initially it was quite pleasant to boat around. I headed N to the Allier, but my feet got cold, and at around 2000m I lost interest in getting higher. I came back to land at Moriez and, as I lost altitude, my feet got warmer. By the time I decided to stay up for a little longer, I was well below launch height over the valley, but it was easy to get back to launch. I found if I stayed around launch height, my feet were ok and the flying was quite pleasant. So I boated around for a while - spending more time looking for sink than lift - before landing after about 1 hour 30 minutes.

If I have got Google+ to do what Picasa used to do, there should be pics here