A constant battle today between the sea breeze and airspace. The wind was a little too far to the south for a classic Margate day - I could never quite get back under the 5,500' airspace and spent most of my time trying to avoid the 2,500' and skimming under the 3,500'

I could see the sea breeze encroaching on my right and it was only ever about 1 cloud behind me. It claimed the flights of my friends who were all closer to the coast than I. My lowest save was a nasty 300' AGL sea breeze climb out from a perfect trigger - the corner of a large set of crop fields surrounded by trees. I'm not quite sure how I lost that climb but I suspect my subconscious was trying to save me - it was a bit of a washing machine.

After that I managed to find the convergence and was motoring along, taking the occasional climb, not really losing any height when the bloody Headcorn airspace blocks my path. Absolutely nothing flying in or out the whole time I flew along its eastern edge of course. I don't understand how we can fly through the Ringer Gliding Club airspace with impunity when they have constant traffic every time we are in the air and yet we can't fly over a completely empty and (from what I can tell) barely used aerodrome. Gah!

Anyway, looking back on it I really should have flown around the west edge of the airspace as the east side was in the sea breeze. I only did it because I could see a nice bonfire on the east side that looked as if the smoke was going straight up, but alas it caused my airspace alarm to blare at me on every turn so I had to bail towards a promising looking cloud. Massive sink meant I never made it.

Easy retrieve consisting of an almost immediate hitch to Ashford, then trains back to Glynde. Not quite the flight I was hoping for but lovely to finally get out nonetheless.