The Adventures of the Anxious.....Glider?!

Well! The time has gone by so quickly (as always!) since I returned from the East Highland Way. I was straight back into the swing of work, although it did take longer to get my head round it! 

My hips were still sore right up until the weekend (having finished the walk on Wednesday 4th) and it took a bath in the Balmoral Hotel (long story) to sort them out!

And I haven't done a whole lot since, although there are a lot of exciting things 'going on' at the moment - to be revealed at some point!

Today was a very exciting day that I've been looking forward to for a while. Dave's parents bought us both a 'gliding experience' for our Christmas last year - and we finally got round to it today!

We awoke to grey skies and drizzle, and didn't think the gliding would go ahead. But everyone was hopeful the weather would clear over, so we made our way to the Scottish Gliding Centre (2nd largest in the UK!) at Scotlandwell, near Kinross.

The cloud had to lift over Bishops Hill in order for the gliding to go ahead, and it came and went. However my instructor Michael, after briefly running over the basic workings of the glider - and my parachute, saw a window of opportunity and we went for it. 

The take off was insane - being winched up on a cable, from zero to airborne in seconds!

I have to say my nerves got the better of me and I couldn't shake them off throughout the whole experience! It was quite intense, flying close to the hill, keeping an eye out for other gliders and having to fly low to keep out of the clouds. Unfortunately the weather window closed very quickly and after around 15 minutes Mike decided it was time to head in. I didn't feel too disappointed - the views of Loch Leven had been amazing, although visibility much further wasn't brilliant - I'd felt pretty sick throughout the experience!

A bit of a bumpy landing and we were back safely on the ground. The weather had turned and it didn't look like Dave would get a shot today. We waited a couple of hours and all of a sudden blue sky swept over and Dave was up up and away!

I still felt nauseous so was happy to enjoy the fresh air and await his also bumpy landing!

A fantastic experience - although if I was going to do it again I'd have to try and beat the nerves first!!