So oddly woke up this morning with the alarm at 8AM. Made breakfast, quick read of the paper and then studied all my radiotelephony notes again. Drove up to Staverton. Plenty of time. Went in to Cotswald Aero club. I was given a fake map and flight plan. I was then left on my own for half an hour to prepare everything. It’s all done on a simulator, which uses a plane, which would be quite interesting. Put on the headset, dialled in my first frequency and clicked ‘start’. Was at an air / ground station, so requested a radio check and taxi instructions. Was told the active runway and QNH. Lined up, then departed, clicked on ‘take-off’, then changed frequency to the MATZ, called for a penetration, that all went fine, then changed frequency to the Class D air-space. Asked for zone transit, all okay. Then the horn went off and I had an engine failure, did the mayday, asked for a vector to the nearest aerodrome, even though it’s only a simulation, you still panic. Started my diversion and then the engine light went out, so cancelled the mayday and said I’d restarted the engine. Turned at the correct point and started to cross the channel. Changed frequency to the open FIR. Tried to change frequency to the destination aerodrome and ask for weather but they didn’t respond. Back on frequency. Passed a drifting lifeboat in the channel, so did a pan-pan call and reported it. Changed frequency again to destination aerodrome and asked for weather, was fogged in, what a surprise. So said I’d divert to my alternate. Changed frequency, asked for a QDM, changed heading, then did the join base leg and final calls. Then it was all over. Made a couple of mistakes, I changed frequency too early initially, I was still within the air / ground ATZ. Also when I was in the control zone I should have stayed on that frequency to make use of their radar rather than change to the open FIR. Also when I was after weather I could have just asked the FIR. Also my route description I just had departure and destination, looking at the map they were opposite each other, so really I should have put in ‘via’. Anyway, I passed. Then went back to James with all the signed paperwork. I then did a 1.4 hour flight which to be honest was a complete disaster. There was this ‘vulcan’ flypast at Staverton, so it was packed as fuck. Leaving the ATZ every plane on earth was heading straight at me, so I was trying to do a nav while literally dodging incoming planes. The heading hold wasn’t to bad, ordinance survey was fine. Then the track crawl was fine up to the motorway intersection, then my altitudes went to shit, same for the airspeed, plus I did go back on to the correct heading. Miles out. And the diversion was shit. Too much on my mind. Waste of money, I may as well have just given four hundred quid to my mother. Still, exam passed anyway. So that’s it now, all I have to concentrate on is flying. No more exams, no more tests. Just have to prove to the examiner than I know what the fuck I’m doing, after today, I’m not so sure.

So started off at Staverton at 11AM, did a preflight and then we knocked up 0.9 hours, doing a number of autorotations and forced landings. Everything was pretty good today apart from quick-stops, which were a bit shit. Then had a debrief and we went through the final skills test. Told I had to do a heading hold and a track crawl, neither of which I’d done before, so now have that planned out ready to do tomorrow. Came back and picked up the dogs worm stuff, booked in for a flu jab. Wormed the dogs, walked Sasha, did plan for tomorrow and then had flu jab. We ate at the local carvery with Sarah and Shaun and caught up, I’m sure all those vegetables won’t do me any good. Radio test tomorrow and the heading hold stuff.

Work was all about waiting and fixing up a few bits I broke last week. Walked Sasha, another nice day, if getting a little chilly. Walked to the gym, did Pump. I think I will divert to Pump three times a week for Christmas, as the weight training is going well now, so time to move on to a build phase, need to work on those arms. Chatting to Laverne, we decided that Jamie has it easy. Some people have it made. Flying tomorrow, no idea what we are doing. Exam on Sunday for radiotelephony.

Slept quite well for a change. Sore throat though, that’s too much coughing up phlegm, glad I shared that with you. Spent he whole day with my ‘Do not disturb’ notice on, which of course everybody ignored. Working on SSE code, which is great fun, but mind numbingly complex. Still got it all working. Walked Sasha. Did another version of it. Went for a nine mile run, decided it was all shite and I could do it better, so rewrote it all again. We now have a rather odd dilemma about which hotel to stay at in Miami, this lady don’t do a Travelodge.

Started off later than planned. Ended up with various build problems. Didn’t actually start testing stuff until this evening. Beginning to get cold now. Walked Sasha. Walked to the gym this evening and did Pump. Walked home and finally got on with some work. Then did a bit more studying for radiotelephony exam. Will be nice to get that one out of the way, then I can just concentrate on the skills test, whenever that may be.

Worked on normals. Which is one thing they are not. Picked up dogs, they were happy to see us anyway. Bloody awful day weather wise. Went to take Sasha out and it hammered down. Left the bloody car boot open for most of the day, everything is wet. Sasha never did get her walk. So finished work early. Went out for a run for an hour, didn’t rain too bad, but quite misty. Came back and studied for the radiotelephony test. Did a bit of research on the guy who will eventually do my skills test, found a YouTube video, he really is the real life incarnation of ‘Ace Rimmer’. Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be home for breakfast.

Woke up at 8AM. Was pissing down. Was nice to wake up in a bed with no dog hair and no dogs though. We went for breakfast at 9:30. Jamie had a cooked breakfast so he was happy. We had no intention of going back into the park with the wonderful drizzle, so hung around until my bowels kicked in and then we headed back to the car. We decided to head south and go to the ‘Bullring’ in Birmingham, which according to the American’s was a muslim stronghold and a complete no-go area for whites. After I found the car park entrance I didn’t find my way blocked by ISIS. I actually quite like Birmingham, it has one of the most diverse cultural mixes in the country. I think this is because it is strictly in the ‘middle’, and everyone just goes there. It’s been about twenty years since I was in this bit though. Okay, it has a large range of shops, but no different to those you would find anywhere else. Jamie diverted me to the Virgin Holiday’s place at the top of Debinhams. We then sat there for about two hours while he relieved me of seven grand. We then had a very expensive burger and drove home. Via Cribbs Causeway, where I bought him his birthday present, Lego, he’s twenty-eight. I sat there and built all the models.

So the alarm went off at 8AM. I got up and made coffee and breakfast for three. Sasha wasn’t too thrilled. We have this really dodgy old duvet in a heap in the guest bathroom, so rather than sleep on two beautiful very expensive dog beds, instead she likes to sleep on that. Anyway, they went out and had breakfast. They knew something was up when I squeezed four tins of food into their bag of mixer. We eventually left half-hour late and dropped the dogs off no problem. They were pulling to get in. Then once in Sasha was desperate to escape and almost cleared the barbed wire. We headed straight up the M5 to Stafford in the most painless traffic ever. I think we did the whole journey in about two hours twenty. Put it this way we had picked up our park tickets and were in the park by 1PM. We did question if it was open. If there was such a thing as a ‘ghost themepark’, we’d just found it. We walked straight to Nemesis and jumped straight on, then got off, walked round again and pretty much got on the next car. Then we walked over to ‘Air’ where we waited about three minutes, I still hate that bloody ride. We took the cable car over to the other side of the park. I was very disappointed that the pasty place was closed, I’d been looking forward to that. Did ‘Rita’ then ’13’ then made our way over to ‘Sonic Spinball’, where it broke down. The after a while we got on it, it then broke down while we were on it and had to be manually released. Time was getting on so we did ‘Blade’ and then ‘Nemesis’ one more time. Exited by via the gift shop. So we did the whole park, with multiple rides on ‘Nemesis’ (which I still rate as one of the best coasters in the world) in under four hours. We have a whole day here tomorrow but the weather is due to be a bit shit, so we may just have breakfast and drive home. He never let on ‘Space Mountain’ or ‘Journey to the centre of the earth’ though. I don’t care if one is in Paris and the other one is in Tokyo.

So after failing to have sex (I did say woo a lot and tweaked his nipple twice), I made breakfast and coffee. I didn’t have a paper so read more of that bloody comms manual thing. We eventually got up and walked the dogs. I then had a quick lunch and drove to Staverton. The aircraft had a governor failure so was waiting for a chap to have a look at it. Thankfully it was just a loose connector and a couple of cable ties later was fine. We did 1.3 hours and covered forced landings, steep turns, confined are landings, slopes, low power operations. All went fine, some bits were a bit dodgy. Booked my radiotelephony oral exam for next Sunday, so need to read up and study all that. Should be straightforward I guess. Although I have to do work in between plus everything else. It should all be over in a few more weeks though.

Must admit I’m somewhat puzzled, I go to the gym, lift 34Kg for five minutes over my head in Pump and don’t get any problems. Jamie wipes his ass and stands up and puts his back out. He’s half my age, and about double my weight. Really can’t fathom that. Work was a real pain in the ass, all to do with render target formats, probably the less said about that the better. Still, another lovely day. Took Sasha out for a nice long walk. Walked to the gym, did Pump, had sex with Laverne and then walked home, did more work. Swore lots. Now it’s time for pizza. Lots of flying again tomorrow, soon it will all be over.