Half a day was all that was available today.  For us who normally spend a very long full day on SOTA days, this required a culture change.  We left with mulligatawny soup in flask at 6.50am BST, and called at my mums first to collect my rucksack - she had repaired the chest strap with new clips using her sewing machine - aren't mums great?  Again, we called at out new favourite breakfast rendezvous, Poplar 2000 (formerly the Truckstop) at Lymm for black pudding and sausage on toast.

We left the M6 at J31A and headed for Longridge, after which we missed a turning and had to go a longer way around to pass the car park on Jeffrey Hill and continue onto the start of the path up by the wall on Longridge Fell G/SP-014.  The pull-in was vacant, so the car was abandoned here as we set off up the gradually ascended path to the summit.  I had a good activation with 23 2m FM contacts, and 2 on 70cm FM.  Calls on 2m SSB remained unanswered, even with 5 watts, but no-one else was heard on this segment of the band either - except Steve M0SGB, who disappeared while I was peakng the beam on him!  There were lots of stations for me; lots were looking for me from my entry on the SOTA Alerts page, and lots more turned up following my being spotted on the SOTA Spots page.  Thanks for this chaps; it is appreciated.

I was a compelled listener to Keith G0OXV working Roger MW0IDX/P to smash through the 5000 chaser points landmark.  Some 1 hour and 35 minutes earlier, I had been responsible for taking him from 4997 to 4998 points.  I could barely believe that G0OXV had gone a whole 95 minutes on a summer Saturday morning without a SOTA chaser point, but the magic moment came around noon local.  Thank you Keith for your outstanding contribution to the SOTA programme.

Having returned to the car, we had a little slack in the timings, so pulled in at The White Bull back towards the M6 for a pint.  Who should follow us into the car park, but Mick M3HJD and Lauren M3KFV on their way to Blackpool!  We had a chat over a drink in the pub, before continuing on our respective ways.

I returned to Macclesfield just in time to unload my walking gear, load up my gig gear, change into my black shirt, trousers and shoes and get back out to a late afternoon jazz gig at Quarry Bank Mill in Styal.  After this, I started to feel ever so slightly tired, with the previous evening's 90 minutes of football and 60 minutes of squash also taking their toll.  I tried to watch The Who, Pink Floyd, and stay up through the early hours for Stevie Wonder on the Live 8 concerts, but I made it only until Floyd's second number, and then spent until 6am asleep on the settee!

Thanks to the following stations all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts, except for G4BLH's 2nd contact and GW0VMW/P which were both on 70cm: