Life is always busy here (who said come to France for a quieter lifestyle) and was frenetic last week which is why my diary is a bit late.
My first topic must be the magnificent response to the Ryanair photographs on the blog, which generated over 5000 page-views in 3 days.
The 'Ryanair' incident closed the runway for a couple of days so I had an enforced rest until the aircraft had been recovered and flown away from Limoges.
I think that the pilot did an excellent job in dreadful weather conditions—we have all experienced 'aquaplaning' in a car and can imagine the nightmare of doing it in a large aircraft.
On Good Friday, I landed at Poitiers airfield where I was thrilled to see 10 Easter Bunnies playing on the grass adjacent to the taxiway (actually, they were mad March hares).
I have never seen so many hares in one place at the same time.
On the way home to Limoges, we did a PFL at a private strip which just finished the day nicely for me.
It has been a very positive week. Matt successfully completed his qualifying cross country (150 nautical miles), Limoges—Angouleme—Poitiers—Limoges. He commented that everyone was very friendly and he had no problems getting his X-country certificate signed.
Indeed, a controller came down from the tower to sign it for him.
Incidentally, one of the controllers at Poitiers is an English guy with a terrific command of the French language. It is always a pleasure to talk to him when I am in his FIS area.
Our Site Administrator, Les King, has been staying here for several days, enjoying the flying and the wonderful food, which is one of his main motivations for flying in France.
We managed several flights in some very changeable weather conditions, doing some navigation trips to Perigueux and Brive with 'touch and go landings' at both airfields.
At Perigueux, I asked the controller if he wanted us to come and pay for the landings and he just said that they were "gratuit" today which is one of the nice things about flying in France.
Our next trip was to La Rochelle where we sampled the delights of the restaurant 'Andre' in the old port area of the city.
This is our favourite eating place in La Rochelle where the seafood is perfection itself. I chose the sea bass and Les chose the swordfish. Both were excellent and the desserts were 'to die for'
The trip out was rather interesting with Les navigating around heavy showers and landing against a 25-knot headwind.
Returning home with a strong tailwind, we had a ground speed of 148 knots and arrived back at Limoges in record time with huge smiles on our faces.
This was flown by Alex who is one of Les's old flying-syndicate colleagues.
What more could we ask for; excellent food, fabulous aircraft, wonderful countryside and a warm welcome everywhere.
At home, the horses are enjoying fresh spring grass at last.
The puppies are thriving and adorable. I am trying to choose their pedigree names which must all begin with a D this year, so all suggestions are welcome!
Les also took the opportunity to sample the new Limoges Airport restaurant (twice) and reports that it offers excellent food at very reasonable prices—a very good way to while away an hour after checking-in for the flight home.
The restaurant is called les Helices and is located above the ground-floor bar/newsagent.
Best wishes
Sue
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