HOW IT ALL BEGAN..... and... FLYING INTO A RAINBOW

Having had much enjoyment (and gained quite a few useful tips) from other bloggers from NZ who fly I thought I should join in. So, to start with, how did I get started on this recreational flying caper.......
Rewind 4 years and a bit to December 2004 and my 50th birthday. My lovely wife gave me an envelope and inside was a voucher for a trial flying lesson at the Waikato Aero Club. Wow!! Fantastic!!! Thank you, love!!!!! She has always known about my fascination with aircraft and wanting to fly but I had never got around to it due to a combination of work, finances, family; you know the story....
So a phone call - and nearly three weeks - later off I went to the club for my first flight. I went up with instructor Paul in C-152 EJZ for half an hour of true enjoyment. I was allowed to play with the controls a bit and it was all over far too soon. I had to admit it - I was hooked straight away.
There then followed a year and a bit of rather intermittent lessons (work, weather, "broken" planes, sick instructors,) before I went solo for the first time in February 2006. Even after that progress was pretty slow and it wasn't until I gave up one of my jobs and started working part-time that I was able to devote enough time and energy to getting my PPL. It was in November 2007 that I finally presented myself for the PPL flight test. In spite of messing up one steep turn (at altitude - I did them fine when low-flying), the examiner turned to me after I had shut down at the end of the test, offered his hand to shake, and said, "Congratulations". BIG sigh of relief from me and a little while later I got the laminated bit of card from the CAA so I could believe it wasn't all a dream! But, of course, that was only the beginning of the fun....

Fast forward to today. Red sky in the morning - pilot's warning! The early morning sun was peeking through some ugly looking clouds and I reckoned it was 50:50 that I would be able to get up today. A check of ifis showed broken cloud at 4000' but rain for lunchtime. By the time I got to the Club at 0950 the weather was definitely not looking good so I thought it best to confine myself to a few circuits in Alpha/Robin "WKF". I hadn't flown a Robin by day for some time (but very current at night having got a night rating a few weeks ago) so it was about time I did. The weather was closing in and there were only a couple of CTC's twinstars in the circuit so it was no bother getting a clearance. Nice first circuit - a bit wide to stay behind a 172 who obligingly left the crcuit on the downwind leg and a reasonably pretty landing - happy me. By the third circuit the windscreen was spattered by rain and I took off after a touch and go towards a bright and full rainbow towards the South - beautiful, but no camera with me to record it - dammit!. A good look around told me that I would be getting quite we very soon so I made circuit number four the last and did a respectable glide approach for a full stop. Just made it to the club house before a moderate shower came across and barely got wet at all. Not bad, I thought, another 0.7 P in C time for the logbook. Hope the weather is better at the weekend (got the "new" Archer III booked on Sunday).