Flight

Wrong direction for the hill really as it was more southerly than forecast but when I got there it seem to be working despite lots of top cover rapidly encroaching from the south. Took off and joined two others and after 10 minutes of rough soaring got straight into a rough but usable climb and decided that with the sun about to be blocked out for good I'd better just go with it. Went straight over Whitewool (another Skysurfing site) where a few people were scratching and on towards New Alresford which makes a good target to avoid the worst of Southampton airspace. The NW drift was very helpful and cloudbase was only 2500asl which meant the 3000ft upper limit wasn't a problem. Everything was looking good for a decent flight here - up at base at 11am, a chance to clear some tricky airspace and a really good looking sky inland. Waited at cloudbase for a couple of turns then headed of to a decent looking cloud and found a weak climb (0.5up) and stuck with it whilst the cloud above me fizzled to nothing. I debated going back to my original climb but that cloud was decaying fast too as the cirrus chased me down. So I headed downwind to the highest ground I could see, which had some good clouds over it, but didn't get anything and with only 1000agl to play with it was all over pretty quickly. The sky inland looked fantastic with streets headed directly for Andover / combe gibbet area and probably well beyond. Managed to thumb  a lift from the first car that passed me who turned out to be another pilot heading for Mercury! I was back on the hill and flying half an hour after landing but there wasn't anything too inspiring going on so headed home.