In the past 10 days I've had some spectacular flying in the Lakes and Scotland, but after many of these flights I go home frustrated that I didn't go further or close the triangle I'd planned and all because my rating of satisfaction for many flights is based on the points scored
In Glencoe I climbed out when others landed, I flew onto, and climbed up the face of the Buachaille past climbers on the crags above the snow topped peak, on down the valley to the Aonach Eagach ridge and back to the Kings House Hotel whilst managing to get back up to cloudbase on two occasions from almost landing I've walked and climbed these peaks and now seen them from above, but still I was not happy because I should have gone further, scored extra points, others had done that and moved up to a higher position in the XC league
In the lakes I had a wonderful flight on Swinside playing in the seabreeze convergence cloud, flying to Hopegill Head and then to Whinlatter and landing on the Top to bag another Wainwright, but I could hear on the radio people flying on Blease and flying big triangles and then scoring big on the league. Wrong choice of site for points
That afternoon I went to Walla and had my best flight at this site flying across the middle of the lake, back to Bleaberry Fell and down toward Borrowdale before landing for a beer at Castlerigg, still not many points to add to my meagre collection
The following day I had to work and watched from my office at home wings climbing out at Clough to great heights before disappearing down the ridge to gain more points
Leagues bloody leagues comparisons with others of how far you can fly how many points you can collect, declaring flights to gain multipliers for extra points flying ridiculous routes and getting back to the start for more points.
The problem with all this is that it leads to misery and discontentment.
That is until the day arrives when you’ve gone the furthest and you do that one rare flight and go big and score mega points or set a site record then the points are just so wonderful. You are the hero of the day, a skygod in your head. So I have decided I will continue to collect the points and be miserable for the sacrifice of one day scoring the jackpot flight and beating the rest.
This all has to be put into perspective against what a bloody fantastic thing it is just to fly a paraglider and soar on the winds and ride the rising currents of air over the mountains across the lakes, so when I don’t collect the points and I land I’ll try to think about where I’ve been and what I’ve seen and how bloody lucky I am to do this wonderful fantastic thing called paragliding
