@fly4business - haha! No inflatable girlfriends, regular boring standard female here, although do occasionally eat small children: decent source of protein. The way I'm thinking is, money-wise, if sims and kit save me even 2 lessons, they've paid for themselves. Instructor has been nagging me to fly circuits in my head in evenings - is flying a sim one step more useful than that do you think? The steps of the circuit are not really the problem for me. I know what I am supposed to do at each stage, but my problem is with feeling the aircraft, flying the circuit in my head just seems like listing things, without the feel.
@horizon flyer - funnily enough this was a bit of a challenge we had a month or so ago. I had the seat positioned high as I have proportionately short legs and long torso and there was a parallax issue with the ASI. Instructor was yelping at me to watch my speed, which I was seeing as (for example) 65kts, yet from her position was below 60. So we dropped my seat back down and mucked about with cushions for a while but it's still something that comes up! I'm learning on tarmac. I hope with all this advice that I can relax and start having fun with it again...
@barit1 - good idea, and means taking it out of the pressure of the busy circuit too.
@n5296s - a good point actually, especially if the landing hasn't been quite centre, it doesn't take much during takeoff to end up in a less-than-desirable position, and a stressful landing followed immediately by a stressful takeoff just compounds the situation. The airfield is very busy and has tightened up on the rules around booking circuits, so I am not sure how easy it will be to fit this in, but I will suggest it.