You could write a very funny book about gliding retrieves.
More tall gliding war stories/anecdotes:
The 1970's and a long distance straight line attempt from somewhere in the South (Dunstable IIRC) to as far as possible in France. Retrieve crew prepositioned at Dover ready for the landing out call. When they got it, they found the place on the map, got on the ferry and set off. Only when they were south of Paris and they phoned for a more detailed check of the location, they found they had misheard it and it transpired the pilot hadn't even crossed the channel - and in fact was in a field about 10 miles from Dover!
RAFGSA club. Corporal Pilot on a cross country lands in the grounds of a stately home and was invited to tea by the ennobled owners. He was busy tucking into the cucumber sandwiches in the drawing room when the retrieve crew arrived. The butler invited them to go to the kitchen to see if cook could rustle something up for them. One of the retrieve crew was a Gp Capt - the Station Commander! (This anecdote can be verified - I know both involved).
A land out in France. The pilot spots a Chateau with a large flat and smooth lawn and thinks "that will do". When in the flare, he passed a flower on the lawn that looked suspiciously like a water lily. It was then he realised the lawn was in fact a lake completely covered in duck weed. Splash! The glider was recovered and flying again soon after. (I know this guy too).
Another out-landing in France - in the Alps this time. Small field, farmer pleased to see the pilot as it was a designated land out spot - complete with windsock - and the farmer got paid every time a glider used it. Pilot phones the Gliding centre who say the retrieve will be on it's way very soon. Grateful farmer offers pilot a glass of wine which was eagerly accepted, followed by another Then a noise in the field prompts the pilot to look out the window where he sees the Gliding centre's one Rallye with the 260hp engine sitting in the field - it transpires they were going to tow him out when he had been expecting a land retrieve! The Cirrus is pushed to the edge of the field with it's rudder 1cm from the wall, a towrope the length of the average winch strop is attached, the farmer holds the wingtip, the pilot sobers up rapidly, the tug gets airborne at the same time as the glider, and the wall at the end of the field is cleared by about 5ft. (I know this to be absolutely true - don't ask why! In the pilot's defence, this was the early 1980s when drinking and flying was socially acceptable in France. The British pilot in question hadn't indulged in this practice - up to this point!)