SKYDIVING

So if you know me, I am pretty normal, or boring whatever you want to call it when it comes to sport- I mean, I don’t really do any extreme sports or go on any extreme holidays. But in 2007 a friend at work, Carly, convinced me to do a Tandem Sky dive with her for charity. It was £150 per person with a minimum of £100 sponsorship money. The charity we decided to do it for was The Lennox Children’s Cancer Fund charity, http://www.lennoxccf.org.uk/. This charity provides financial, practical and emotional support to children and their families affected by cancer.

Even though I was really nervous, knowing that I was doing it for charity helped a lot, and it also meant that I couldn’t chicken out! Between the two of us we raised just over £1300, which was pretty good. So on Saturday the 6th of October 2007, we set off to the Old Buckingham Airfield in Norfolk where we had booked to do the jump.

When we got there, we were both really nervous, and to top it off we had to watch several planes go up before us, then watch the people on those plans pierce through the clouds and glide back to the ground on their parachutes. If you see the size of the planes, they are tiny!!! The main door is like a shutter, like the ones that are on your local sweetshop when its closed- I mean, can you imagine my fear- the plane didn’t even have a real door?!!

By the time I was on the plane, (which didn’t have seats by the way), I was thinking, ‘Oh My God I am mad for ever agreeing to do this’. But by the time I got the courage to tell my instructor, (who by the way I was strapped to), that I changed my mind and didn’t want to jump; He had me on my feet and it was our turn next. I was so scared!!!
Standing at the door 15000 feet up, looking out to see nothing but clouds, with the loud sound of gushing air and the hum of the aeroplanes engine, he didn’t even give me a chance to say I didn’t want to do it, he just JUMPED!!!

Falling through the air was so surreal- like a dream. It is so beautiful; you know when you’re going or coming back from holiday on an aeroplane and your looking out of the window, when the plane is just above the clouds. They look so beautiful don’t they? Like you can play on them and jump from one to the next as they look so bouncy and fluffy. Well that’s what they looked like, only this time I was falling toward them, wondering when I touched them would I bounce???
Of course, I do not bounce; we were only free falling for about 30 seconds, even though it feels much longer.

As soon as we reach the clouds, my instructor pulls the parachute open, and the air under it pulls us up with a tug, then we go through the clouds, gliding this time instead of falling.
Going through a cloud is a weird feeling, like you are in mist or fog I guess, the temperature is cooler, your vision is minimal, and it is unusually quite. When we came through the other side,

you can see the world below, the outlines of the fields, the cars that look like dots, and until you get closer you can’t even see the people as they are so small. Gliding toward the ground, getting ready to land, I was on such a high and I just wanted to do it again.

This was such a rewarding, surreal and unforgettable experience. I would recommend to anyone and everyone that you should do a skydive at least once in your lifetime. Do it for a charity also, for one it is more rewarding knowing that you are helping a charity, and for two it makes it harder for you to chicken out.