Up, up and away!

D's dad has been building a plane. In the carport!

OK, so he converted the carport into a kind of hanger and added walls and doors so that he could fit a wing on one side at a time but it's still not your average hobby!

We went to visit on Wednesday and discovered that after seven years of construction, the plane had taken it's first flight that very afternoon... Successfully! Alas, aviation rules in these circumstances mean that the planes have to be flown for around five hours by qualified test pilots before they can be flown by the constructor but it's well on its way to being completely cleared already!

The guy test-flying is the son of the guy who does safety checks on the ground to confirm air-wirthiness... You've gotta admire his confidence in letting his son fly these things! I wonder what kind of life insurance policy the test-pilot has??

Anyway... The plane itself is a single seater, meaning we won't be dragged off the gorund anytime soon, although we have been flown in a slightly larger four-seated model some years ago! I'll hopefully get some shots of the plane to blog in the future (with the new camera) but as we weren't there for the event itself, I've included an image I shot randomly whilst testing the new camera a few days ago... Not a bad zoom on it and the image stabilisations fairly good... Still working on the settings and am going to have to read the manual soon!!

In other news, Red Nose Day looms once again... No laughs for me, sitting at home, off work with a bad back (amongst other issues) although it does mean we can start the celebrations (wine? Beer? Vodka??) earlier than planned! No Ugly Betty tonight (boo) but we've still got last weeks taped to watch (yay)! Will have to fit Jericho into the schedule too... It's badly over-acted but strangely compulsive!

Mothering Sunday is also about to hit so I must get the card in the post... Am semi-organised but could be doing better... My brain's not working quite as it should lately which means I'm only half-way there most often! Need lots of prompts and reminders to get me through a day... Another reason I'm not being my most effective at work... have seen another interesting job which I'm considering applying for... Maybe more on that another time? Jxx