...which presently sucks big time.

The weekend in Killarney was no good for flying: Friday was apparently ok but that's when most of us were still at work or on the road. Saturday was so-so, with everybody except Andrew, Jason and Martin bombing out quickly and nothing afterwards. Sunday was pretty much blown out, and Monday was definitely blown out. 500km of driving for 18 minutes of flight. Winter sucks.

But the Glühwein was good: Saturday we knocked back 10 liters (among about 7 people), Sunday 5l. And I saw snakes in the wild! Sunday we did some weeding of the western launch, and somebody was about to pick up a big bramble of weeds when he saw a python/"carpet snake" in it. It was pretty lazy and we got it on a stick and out of the way. Monday we saw another one on the way home, sunning itself in the middle of the dirt road. That one was fairly big, and active. Martin chucked it in the bushes; better than driving over it.

Other than that there's only drizzle...rain...wind...rain and more drizzle. Very depressing weather, no flying to be had at all. My car is acting up badly; the appointment with the mechanics is next Friday but I'm afraid it'll be time to shop around Real Soon Now... My backup tape changer has been acting up in the last few days, which doesn't make me happy either.

And, icing on the cake of things to be pissed about, is that I can likely scrap the idea of bringing my glider with me to Austria later this year: AT wants an IPPI level 5 for cross-country flying, with 4 being sufficient for flying in local areas only. With an Oz Intermediate rating it looks like I can only get an IPPI4 rating at present. (To get an IPPI5 I'd need to get me an Advanced rating, but that's a bit of a problem because I haven't had my INT for a full year yet - which is one of the requirements.) FUCK THIS. I won't lug the gear with me for bloody ridge soaring and sleddies only, no way. Ah well, maybe I'll shorten the trip so that I don't miss too much of the beginning of the good season here...we'll see.