Might as well be in French...

Donc là j'étais à mille pieds sans parachute. Ok not really relevant but it's not easy starting a new post with something different. I'm sure you'd agree it would beboring if it always started with "..Hello. Today I flew a helicopter again, blah blah blah..."
Today (Sunday 10th not Monday12th)was a late flight in the day starting at 3pm ish and finishing at 5pm ish. That time was spent with A bit of 'Master Chef does out back cooking at airpost' (another story for another time), a spot of theory then an flight lasting 1.1 hrs. The weather was lovely. 20 degrees with hardly 4 knots of wind. A perfect day to fly. Sadly every other pilot and his dog/wife/friends/kids/cat(aircraft cat?(you get a ships cat...)) being out taking advantage of the weather. Never seen the apron so empty and on top of all that never heard the radio so busy!
Richard very kindly suggested we go south of the airfield and a change scenery as the last 10 flights have been either circuits or north bound. Sadly today I was not totally in the fame of mind for proficient flyo g. My take off was a bit better than last few flights but I'm still struggling with the coms and getting the right phrases at the right time. Today was not helped but the sheer volume of traffic and also a change to the norm since making coms calls to ATC. No fault of Richards I might add. Just luck of the draw. A busy week at the coal face and a 7hr trip to Scarborough after the flight didn't help matters. (NB - I'm writing this in my hotel room 1:25am Monday having just arrived. Don't worry I'm not writing it while on the loo, even though that would be more time efficient!I digress..).
After a confusing start to cams we made our way south and bound for fields out towards Swanage and Wareham. Straight and level flight commenced without any major hitches... Well comms butive mentioned that already. Rubbish comms being a theme today. When we got to our area there were a number of aircraft converging on Bournemouth and passing our location. So with the radio going ten to the dozen and looking out for aircraft, I honestly found it hard to focus fully on what Richard was saying and demonstrating (sorry Richard, nothing personal). He demonstrated an advanced auto rotation (exercise 17) which develops in the a and allows greater range on the glide slope. A good skill when the choice of emergency landing might be trees, trees, water or distant cricket pitch. My attempt was scrappy and a late confused recovery. Yeh, really not there in spirit. Richard could see I wasn't on The ball so we returned to the air filed and did a quick 5 mins looking at exercise 20 which is like hover taxiing only a lot quicker and past transitional lift. That went ok and my return and landing were pretty good considering my lack of 'in the zone'. I recorded the flight so once I've edited it I'll put some small grabs of the good bits and the bits I didn't do sp well in. Sadly I can't get recording of the comms so you can't hear me bugger that up. Watch this space. I'll do it as soon as I'm not teaching up here. So from sunny Scarborough, I bid you adeau, Vol sûr et bonne chance