Waking up to heavy rain and forecasts of fairly strong winds, the decision to set off for the two-and-a-half hour drive to Combe seemed an eccentric one. I arrived to find surprisingly few people on the hill and only about three in the air. Despite a powerful looking sky, my first two attempts to fly surprisingly found me back on the take-off in short order. The third attempt proved more successful, as after a bit of working the lift I just about managed to get enough height to go back. I continued to drift back in now decent lift, but keeping a wary look-out on the big clouds. At near 3.5 thousand feet, I thought "that'll do; I don't want to mess with all these ominous looking clouds, and there'll be plenty of lift pretty much everywhere - no need to worry about getting low". So I set off on glide. Wrong! No more lift; just a fairly lengthy descent to a landing in St Mary Bourne. Once I packed up, I found that Andrew Craig had landed the other side of the village, and was walking in, so I decided to also walk in and hope to meet up. I was confident he would be found in the fine cafe that a local told me about. As I arrived in the centre of the village, Helen Barnes came by, so we went to join Andrew in the cafe, from whence Helen took us back to Combe. Thank you very much Helen! I recommend the frangipane.