Flight

Following a cold night, with a clear sky and burning sun (wispy bits showing at 10am), the day looked good as we arrived at Bell Hill. Local pilots were already testing conditions. There was a moderate wind across the takeoff slope, waining when punchy thermals cycled through off the westerly side of the bowl, others from further out front. Thermals were fierce and hard to track but pilots held good seperation and airmanship. A couple of turns had you over the back and quite low at first; and some (myself included) were getting to a few hundred feet before aborting, and then struggling to push back to the hill~ loosing all height along the way. It was going to be windy uptop. 
Cumulus started forming. 
Finally it came. Quickly tracking over the back as we climbed, a small gaggle committed to the chase up to cloud base (which may well have ended 2/3km behind takeoff) and 3200ft. A downwind dash for a few km and at 900ft found another climb to cloud. Some cores had the vario hypertoning and off the scale. The gaggle had split up, and with the windspeed it was hard to judge thermal drifts and trigger points,  so I decided to stay under cloud and drift West of the firing range. Passing over the powerstation at 2500ft, and then joining a sailplane under a nice cu. I was soon at the coast, where a nice thick line of cumulus had formed marking convergence, with plenty of lift.
I tracked to Weymouth for a bit, but I was heading closer to the Sea so turned around and headed East over the firing range, tracking over another pilot soaring a ridge below which continued along towards Swanage. As the Purbeck Hills started opening up between me and the sea, the wind picked up and became quite rough with an easterly component. Now facing inland and gale-hanging, it was time for full speedbar and tera-firma. The other pilot (Peter Marley) had decided the same, so I joined him in the grassy area of a carpark on top of the ridge.