Good Old Golden Ball.

RASP said three stars and the best part of the country was a slice across the south. After some back and forth we opted for Milk Hill over Mere and two tasks were set, Mine a 155km to Huntingdon and Joe's 130km to Wellingborough. Joe sent a pin for parking and I arranged to meet him there where Andrew K would meet us and we would out to the hill.

We met at around 9.45 and on the way to the hill criticised our decision to not go Golden Ball on a day that looked to be perfect, luckily, however, the route to Milk takes us directly past GB and we were able to notice that it was empty and all other pilots not unusually had opted for Milk hill. We made the call there and then and decided GB was too good to resist. We sent out the war cry to the usual team and pointed our conch skyward to inform them of our change of plan, but unfortunately, the reliability of the technology and the lack of signal the Pewsey vale offer meant that we were all on separate take-offs as Kirsty had headed to Milk with Alex.

Myself, Joe and Andrew were quick to set up as the sky looked to be developing nicely and 20 minutes later I was airborne closely followed by the others. We were quick to find out the day was not working yet and spent another hour ground-bound watching resident kites frolic.

Andrew asked if we should change the plan from my declaration to Joe as the day was starting so slow and we were now sitting looking at blue skies to the south and the north which was sure to make things more tricky than desired. We all agreed and radioed Kirsty on the other hill to inform her of the change.

30 minutes passed before birds seemed to be using more than the ridge to stay up, but wasting no time and led by Joe we launched and were soon climbing as a trio in a punchy 0.8ms straight off launch. We took this climb over the back as it slowly developed but the air felt inverted at around 2800 feet and we bounced along under it with drift before Joe broke both the silence and the tension with a radio message "Guys, I can see Kirsty down wind climbing" and indeed she was, so we wasted no time joining up with her as the trio became a familiar quartet.

Some broken climbs and nothing more than 3000 feet later Kirsty and I had separated and were in a solid climb near Swindon as Joe and Andrew had gotten low and had to sit in the dribble for a little while. With Brize airspace now approaching we had to push west and a little crosswind, but this offered the perfect opportunity for Joe and Andrew to catch us up. Unfortunately, Joe's eagerness to reunite with the team saw him hit some sink and despite a valiant effort he bombed just as the sky came alive and CU clouds were becoming a regular feature.

Kirsty and I pinged out shortly after and with radio communication, we held up as Andrew caught us up and we were back to a trio.

The flight was tricky for the most part, Not in staying high, but in that the climbs were still unconsolidated and broken and were often weak below 3500 feet so we had to really work to maintain good height in transitions, but this was something that we worked well at, trusting each other and constantly focusing on one another's line, calling climbs that others may have missed.

A booming climb over Milton Keynes got us all into the white room at about 5200 feet and it seemed the end of the day was now booming. We had about 40km to goal, but it turned out that Kirsty hadn't heard our radio message on Milk and she was still flying the original task to Huntingdon so at some point we would have to go separate ways.

Pushing on as a trio we were met with another nice climb as I joined two kites, Kirsty and Andrew quickly joined me and we began to thermal right turns toward cloud base. The kites joined us and in doing so stopped their own left-hand turns and joined in synchronising their turns with ours. I radioed how cool it was and that I had it on GoPro (had I not put the GoPro on the mount backwards earlier you could have all viewed it on my Instagram). The sky was now starting to look a lot less productive and Andrew asked me what my plan was.

"I'm sticking to goal mate, the sky looks pants but we can eek out the 22km" Kirsty was of course forced with the decision to either stay with us or try her goal 40km further E.

With the sky now a solid 7/8 and the only sun on the ground being toward her goal Kirsty opted to fly on her way and the trio was now a dynamic duo.

Andrew and I had a poor sky with no sun on the ground but it was a working sky, we stopped to take a slow 0.8ms climb about 16km from goal and once again topped out at base where we used the drift until our instruments told us we had the glide to goal.

The final glide was about 14km and I spent it with my arms tucked into the harness using only weight shift to keep the course line. Despite a buoyant line, the Vario remained quiet there wasn't an offering of any useable lift as we watched the distance to goal work its way down to 0 and instruments alerted us that we had made it.

Some wingovers and spirals and we touched down in goal for another journey home through London and the underground.

Sometimes it is worth the punt on a three-star forecast, especially when you get to spend the day with mates doing what you love.