it was Christmas

So after finishing work I set off down the motorway to get over to my dads which involved going over Snake pass which is not the nicest road in the uk, as I started to make my way up the start of snake pass I spotted a bloke hitch hiking. Now it was pitch black and teaming down with rain, not a nice evening to be out. So I pulled over and asked who he was and where he was going, I may never have picked up a hitch hiker before but I don’t care and we are doing it my way, so I was waiting for any answer that would have pointed out to me that he was some killer or something. But he was just a homeless bloke and was trying to get over to Sheffield, now think its Christmas eve at about 8:30, it dark and raining and it very cold, if you were in that position how much would you have been wanted to be picked up? So I did and we set off over snake pass, so after chatting I found out his name was Dan and he has been homeless for 8 years or so, he came from Manchester but has only been back there recently, he has been travailing around the uk. He has a family but has not contacted them for years and expected they had stopped looking. I have to say he was such a nice bloke, I real down to earth person. This also made me value what I had this Christmas. After dropping him of only a few miles from Sheffield I tried to give him a little money, nothing too much just the change I had on me but he dint want any which I respected. After dropping him ff I did thin about trying to find out where his family are and just letting them know I saw him and he is ok, I must admit I don’t think a phone call however short would have been that hard to do a Christmas eve.

So down to the exciting bit of Christmas and that would be what you get, lets be honest we all like to see friends and family but you cant say the gifts just don’t matter, I think I did very well this year, the big one which I'm really going to look forward to would be the track day down at Silverstone, I get to drive a F3 car round the track for the day, Cool. I also got a nice new bag for my laptop, which is perfect when in just going to and from work. I have a few more gifts which I love but we may be here for some time if I talk about all of them.

Well that's the xmas thing done for another year and sitting on the end of this festive time I feel like its been a wonderful time even if I thought it was going to be just a normal day, even with all the driving and having to run around at speed it was a very good Christmas.

And my video's of the event,

Touch the Sky



Learn to Fly

The day I touch a cloud,

So today I had the wonderful pleasure of touching a cloud. Think how often you have seen clouds in your life time, think how nice they look some days and think of how many interesting things they can resemble. Have you ever touched one? If you would like to touch a cloud all you have to do is get someone to take you up in a micro light and fly in to one which I did today. Now like most people I tend to think that the bigger planes are more safe and more of a smoother ride and I was expecting for my day in the sky to be a scary and bumpy one but this was not to be. Once getting to the air field (no thanks to GPS, I didn’t think a farm would also do flights) I was expecting a 20/30 min lessen in what not to do when up there but after getting out of my car it was 2/3 mins before I was kitted up and sat in the motor bike of the sky. After a few “don’t do this” lessens we say at the end of the air strip and waited for clearance to take off, now these little things are really like motor bikes of the sky. You ever seen a motor bike at the lights? As soon as the light goes green they are off with this is the same for micro lights, as soon as he got the ok we shot down this grassy runway like we were being powered by a rocket and within seconds we were up and up and up. I think most people have been on a plane and for me take off is one of the more interesting times, not good just interesting so I did expect the same type of feelings but nope. It was such a smooth flight as we went out to the cost of Liverpool. as we got there, there were some clouds which he was going to fly under as the last thing both of us wanted to see was a easy jet flight up close and personal but as we start to go under we flew straight through one which I did reach out and touch (with permission) we flew down the beach passing Formby (location of the lovely picnic last year) and then down until you could just make out the Liver building, then we heeded back in and passed over Magul before turning back for the air field. While up there I chatted to the man flying who was telling me how easy these micro lights are to fly at which point he took both hands off the controls, at this point I did close my eyes waiting for the noise of the quickly approaching ground but after a few seconds this was not the case and the micro light just flew its self, even with a bit of turbulence. So after about 20 mins we were back at the air field and starting our decent at a fast rate, with in mins we were quickly approaching the ground and in the blink of an eye we were down and moving back to the safe area.

I know it didn’t last for long but I can tell you that is an amazing thing to do, its not what you expect and is a smooth, worry free, beautiful flight in a wonderful place. I would recommend it to any one