Day: January 3, 2018

Sadly as many readers know already, I haven’t flown since April 2017 due to the health issues that overtook me but as it looks as though they will be over and I’ll be making what I hope will be a full recovery over the coming weeks and months, I’m now allowing myself to start making plans again.

I had a whole bunch of flights planned for last year in the Savannah along with Victor whenever he could join me, around much of SW France and I can’t wait to dig them all out again, blow the dust off, plug ’em into my satnav and get going. They should be a lot of fun as I took care to select airfields and itineraries for each one such that we could stop for a good lunch along the way before continuing and eventually making the round trip back home again.

It’ll be a real treat to start working our way through them as they include inland rural, hilly and coastal areas. And not only that but we’ll also be planning to take in a few notable sights like the Millau Viaduct from the air.

Another aim that I set for myself during, let’s just say, the darkest moments of my illness was to make another trip back to the UK in 2018 and this now looks as though it should come to fruition some time between late April and early July. Last time in 2016 I took a two-day stop-over with a friend in Saumur before being cleared through Headcorn and ending up at Bowerswaine Farm in Dorset because that was close to where my sister and brother-in-law lived.

It won’t be necessary to go that far this time because they’ve moved back up to Kent, so my plan is to make my final destination a private field next to his house owned by a good friend of mine in Kent where my son also lives. I’ll then be in close proximity to my close family and friends, making it much easier to arrange evenings out, get-togethers and so on. It’ll be enormous fun and I can hardly wait.

It’ll also make for an interesting landing as the field in question is shortish and sloping, but nothing like what we are used to over here so not too daunting. Whether I’ll then be planning other local flights from there in SE England and beyond during my stay I don’t know yet, but I probably will just for old time’s sake.

So what with other things I have planned for 2018, like some fairly major work that I had to put on hold to my house and garden, not to mention my first flight in the Weedhopper after having to wait for over a year with it all ready to go, 2018 should be quite a year to remember. And this time for good reasons, not the opposite 😀