Hi Juno,
When I read your post it made me remember how frustrated I was at that stage of training too. Just going round and round.
You mentioned the midlands, if you are flying at East Midlands Airport you will know that the circuit often takes a lot of time due to the 2 mile long runway and a bit of orbiting for jet traffic. This would add to the time. The first solo is never perfect, you have to be safe, I don't think 'tweaking' is really a good explanation from your instructor. You need to know exactly what it is that you need to do. My landings were rubbish, but kind of safe after 12 hours and I was nervously sent off to fly on my own. Is your instructor new to instructing and a little nervous to let you go maybe?
The other advice is all fantastic, I would agree, book a lesson when your usual instructor is not on, or book with another club. If you try other airfields you will end up having to learn different procedures and different length runways, it may add to the hassle.
Good luck. Please keep up posted in this thread. I would love to know how you get on. We have all pretty much been in this situation in our training where we feel frustrated and stuck.
