Flight

Took off from the Dyke and eventually got a little bit of height and (FIRST MISTAKE) noticed that the wind had gone a bit west. Others have said go to Newtimber and get height when it's west so got half way there, noticed that wind wasn't actually from the west and climb petered out. (SECOND MISTAKE) Dithered a bit and got too low for comfort (not a good place to be; I shouldn't have put myself in this situation) behind the Dyke but noticed Matty Allen climbing out over the golf course so attempted to join him.
	
As soon as I aimed for his climb it worked and went up to 3000feet ASL. Matty went south to play with sea breeze front over Brighton whilst I stayed away from SBF and headed towards Asda. There were very lifty lines on much of my route and I managed to straight line and still go up. Went past new football stadium, then got climb just east of Lewes taking me past the back of Caburn and a bit later to the south of the gliding club.

Highlight of the flight was getting a bit low ( about 1000 feet) just north of Arlington reservoir, spying a distant lone seagull which was starting to thermal low out of a field, managing to intersect his (or her) course and connecting with the thermal eventually taking me to cloudbase at 5100 feet.

(THIRD MISTAKE) Pushed crosswind to try to avoid the Laser site, lost concentration (being a bloke I can't multi-task, got low and then had to gain a bit of height to hop over power lines then landed.

Huge thanks to Tefal who retrieved me and Matty, and to Matty who I noticed and followed into the thermal just behind the Dyke and saved me from mistake number 2.

I'll add a few pics when camera batteries are re-charged. EDIT: pics now added 30th June.