Chocks Away

It must have been the mango lassi but I woke up surprisingly sprightly given the curry and the 12% imperial stout from the night before - I even managed to find room for a full english before being picked up by Mark on our way to Tees-side airport.

Mark had booked a Cessna for a couple of hours so we can have a tootle about. It was a beautiful morning - a little bit of mist but that was slowly burning off and we decided we'd wander down the coast.

(left) Captain Mark checks for condensation and (below) the Tees



We headed over towards Seaton Carew and then turned south - before too long it was time to flick Vs towards the simian folk of Victoria Park and we then fly over the mouth of the Tees (no, not Jeff Winter).


We continued south, flying over seaside towns that I used to visit many years ago - Sandsend, Saltburn and Whitby.

We head inland and fly over the moors towards Roseberry Topping - no doubt the couple of early-bird walkers on the summit were a bit concerned as we circled around.

And then back to terra-firma and the airclub canteen for a nice cup of tea - what a wonderful way to start a Saturday - much preferable to the vagaries of National Express.


Mark then dropped me at the Arts Centre where Colin was already busy bottling various dark beers into his Panda pop bottles. Only about 10 today.

Still plenty of decent beers left to try - those worthy of mention were Backyard's Nippin, the Black Porter from Captain Cook and the Caulker from Jarrow. And I had to have another half of the Tokyo Imperial stout before heading off to the football.

The first half of the game was quite uninspiring but we took the lead after some quick thinking from Clarke. I probably spent more time watching the stewards at the away end being overly officious with the small number of Stanley fans. A group of Girl Guides could have done a better job.

The second half was much improved with plenty of neat passing moves - all it took was one sweet lob from Clarke and a thundering header from Alan White to finally put the game to bed.