The flying in September/October was much better as the weather was a lot more stable and provided very consistent flying and thermalling conditions - just what Mari and I needed. The September 11 atrocities however meant that everyone was pretty tense in and around the airports getting to and from Greece. It seemed everywhere you looked, there lurked some looney who was prepared to fly the plane into Buckingham Palace.
Fortunately, nothing of that nature occurred and to this day, the nutters have not tried anything on UK soil.
Aside from many happy hours in Greece thermalling
and getting substantial height gains above take-off, Mari and
I enjoyed an SIV day, that is a day of practicing
"incident responses" to small problems with the paraglider whilst
in-flight. The nice thing about this was the location -
2,000 feet above the ocean giving lots of room to sort out
problems and a reasonably soft, if rather wet landing in the event
it didn't go well! We practiced all kinds of recovery
techniques and came away at the end of the day feeling much
happier about the safety of the wing and our own abilities to
react correctly and do the right thing under pressure.
I decided I really liked the new glass building at Vauxhall Cross - the new MI-6 headquarters! This is the same building that's been in the news, first as the backdrop for the latest James Bond film, but more recently when terrorists fired an anti-tank rocket at it, causing minor damage.
John was a bit nervous and told me to take a letter from the university on letterhead explaining the course, and to make sure I didn't go alone, so that if I was asked inside to answer questions about what I was doing, at least someone would know that's where I had gone. I thought this was all a bit over the top, but took the letter and a classmate anyway.
After wandering around outside for ten minutes or so and being monitored by the security cameras, I settled down to my work and was getting some great shots. Then this man in a suit approached me and very politely asked me why I was photographing the building. I explained the course and showed him the letter and he seemed happy enough. Then I introduced my friend, a fellow student from North Africa, called Mohamed. In hindsight, I agree he probably wasn't the best choice for this particular assignment - but everything worked out and the man in the suit said we could continue, as long as we didn't photograph any people coming in or out of the building.
Mari's
News...
Well, staying with the Paragliding theme for a bit longer
I finally got my CP (Club Pilot) rating and so can at last
clog the airways with my hesitant turns and random flight paths!
It hasn't all been plane sailing though - our first trip to Greece had me landing in the olive trees (it wasn't my fault!) and also plopping into the sea on one missed approach! Fortunately I was only a metre off the beach so I simply waded ashore with nothing more serious than a wounded ego...
The flying in Greece was really something. It was so nice to fly for more than just a few minutes as I usually do in England off the small little hills in Wiltshire. Greece was big mountain country and strong thermals which saw me staying aloft for up to 51 minutes!
I'm still busy with work, as the Japanese recession continues to bite, I'm getting lots of work for Japanese magazines too poor to send a photographer over, but more on that in a minute. One thing I'm really happy about doing is an article and accompanying photos for a Japanese paragliding magazine about a Japanese girl (me!) learning to fly in England. They're quite excited about the concept as they haven't really ventured into this area before - so it should be great!
I finished my college course and graduated with a National Diploma in Photography. This was a really interesting course, and I was really happy to graduate with grades of distinction and merit in so many of the topics. One funny story though...
I was doing an elective as part of the course, and chose the Architectural Photography unit as I really like photographing buildings and structures. The course work required us to go out and find a building in London we liked and shoot a couple of rolls of film of it and then do all the arty-farty discussion about the relative merits of various shots.
Here's one of the shots I got that day - it shows the main entrance looking up to the transmission towers on the roof!
The MI-6 Headquarters at Vauxhall Cross
I really enjoyed the architecture course, and have included another picture I quite like on the next page, it's just an old 70's era office block in Euston and is the home of the Inland Revenue Service, but the angle, sky and everything else just kind of conspire to making a really interesting photo.
This part of the course I passed with the highest marks and gained a distinction based on my practical photographic work. I've got so many funny stories about getting access to old and interesting buildings in London to shoot them, but they can wait for another day...
click on the wombat to return home...