Wednesday 24th July dawned bright and sunny again here in Folkestone, but more importantly it wasn't windy. Since my non-skydive the previous Friday, July 19th, I'd had mixed feelings about the re-run to be honest. There was no way I was going to back out, there was far too much money riding on it for one thing, but more importantly, if I say I'm going to do something, I do it. However, that didn't stop me having occasional thoughts of 'What the f**k am I doing?' and being completely freaked out at the thought of being 12,000 feet up in the air and attached only to a guy with a backpack on, which hopefully contained a working parachute. For someone who can't bear walking out on a pier and seeing the sea through the planks of wood, or standing at the window of a building above three floors to admire the view, this was a majorly big deal. But in amongst the doubts and fears, there were also times when I was really looking forward to doing it. Everyone I'd spoken to who had been skydiving themselves told me I'd love it, that it was amazing and surely they couldn't all be wrong or lying, could they?
Well, in the grand scheme of things I didn't have long to find out. I deposited daughter number three at an archaeological dig and collected daughter number one and set off to Headcorn, where we met up with my parents, enjoying another day out! There was the inevitable waiting around, but this time only because there were other jumpers ahead of me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, just before 15:00 (3:00 pm to those of you who, like me, prefer the British version of telling the time) I got the call to get kitted up and met my tandem partner, Clem, for the first time. He cracked a lot of jokes, starting by saying he was nervous. Not the best thing to say to someone who actually is nervous! Imagine if my command of the English language and understanding of humour had been less than good, I might have changed my mind about the whole thing. So I got a lovely purple jumpsuit and hat, complete with goggles, to put on and then get strapped into the harness, which was surprisingly heavy. Clem showed me how to tighten the harness and put the hat and goggles on and then he tightened the harness properly - cue camel toe! I'd booked a video and photos, so Holly, my camera woman, did a brief pre-jump interview with both me and Clem, who announced that the reason he was there was to do Hobnobs. Nervous laughter all round - I wasn't sure how else to respond to that! We set off to the plane, well a light aircraft really (another first -I'd never been in one of those before either) and had a photo outside, before climbing inside. We were the first inside, so that meant we'd be the last out. One by one all the other instructors and tandem skydivers like me filed in. Clem and I were sat on a bench, some of the others were on the floor and it was a pretty fit. From the bench I could see out of the window of the Cessna, which was good and bad - it would take us 15-20 minutes to get to 12,000 feet, so it was good to be able to look out at something, but there was also my fear of heights to contend with. Now whilst I'm not a regular flyer, I'm not scared of flying, but then remember I'd never been in a plane like this before. Clem was brilliant and talked me through everything I could expect, so I was prepared for a little turbulence, but the plane didn't feel particularly solid or safe at times and when we banked to circle the airfield it was a little scarey. But the rest of the time the view was phenomenal - I could see Ashford, Canterbury, Folkestone, Maidstone, Bewl Water, Beachy Head and miles of trees, fields, roads and railway lines. Clem kept me posted on our altitude by showing me his altitude meter every 1000 feet. I would have preferred to just take his word for it rather than have to see it on the dial, particularly when we got to 12,000 feet and had to circle the airfield again whilst waiting for clearance from Air Traffic Control both in Headcorn and in London. It wasn't long before the door cover was slid back - time to put hats and goggles on and final adjustments and checks on the harnesses were made. I should point out that by this time we were hooked together and from 10,000 feet I'd been sitting on Clem's lap, which made a change from being between his legs! Two experienced single skydivers went first, then the other two tandem pairs, both of whom were also being filmed. Finally it was our turn and we edged towards the open door. Holly went out first and clung on to the outside of the plane, the camera on her helmet filming us. Clem sat on the edge of the plane, with me dangling outside, a quick smile as I folded my arms across my body, gripping my sleeves for dear life and tipping my head back and then we were out. I'd been worrying about swearing, but I kept it to a short scream, which is apparently good - you're exhaling, so then you'll naturally start to inhale. The first few seconds were awful as we somersaulted over, with a twist thrown in for good measure, in Tom Daley-esque fashion, but once we'd levelled out and adopted freefall position it was absolutely amazing. Totally awesome, incredible, something I can't really put into words. The view was out of this world and it was a somewhat bizarre feeling. Holly was in front of me filming away and Clem above me pretending to swim amongst other things, but the strange thing was there was absolutely no concept of falling or moving at all. It was as though we were still, the air below us appearing to hold us up and counteracting the gravity pulling us downwards - I wish I'd paid more attention in physics lessons! It didn't seem possible that we were travelling at around 120 mph. There was also no concept of time - I couldn't tell you how long we were in freefall for; it felt neither a long time, nor a short time, just timeless. Clem pulled our ripcord before Holly, so that she could capture the moment our canopy opened as she continued to fall below us. She then opened her parachute and reached the ground before us, so that she could film our descent. Once the canopy was open it was relatively easy to get my bearings and sight the airfield still some way below us. I had a go at steering the parachute, including doing some sharp spiral turns - the other part of the proceedings I wasn't keen on. Then before long we were approaching the ground, so it was into landing position, which basically meant holding your legs up out of the way until touching down on terra firma. Once down, more filming and photos and then we were rounded up by the minibus and driven back to base to get out of the harness, hat, goggles and suit. My certificate was waiting for me and I then had a short wait, with a cup of tea, for my video and photos.
It was such a fantastic experience and I still can't quite believe that I actually did it and am now a provisional member of the British Parachute Association. Initially I wasn't sure if I would do it again if the chance arose, but as time's gone on I can definitely say that I would. It was out of this world and a real privilege to be able to do something a little out of the ordinary.
I don't normally include photos of my Fifty Firsts - you can always find them on Facebook or Twitter, but I think this calls for an exception to be made.
The day dawned with blue skies and a gentle breeze, making it slightly cooler than it had been earlier in the week, but still hot. I got up, dressed in leggings and a long sleeved T shirt in preparation for the big event - existing members of the skydiving fraternity told me the suits you get to wear are not the most comfortable - and ate breakfast. After that it was feed the rabbits, put them out in the run, wash the dishes and put some make-up on before heading off to Headcorn Airfield, where the jump was due to take place, with my youngest daughter on board in the capacity of official photographer.
We arrived bang on half past nine as required, parked and made our way to the Tandem Skydiving Portacabin, sorry, Meeting Point, where I signed in and got the hard sell on hiring a camera person to film the entire escapade. I then made my way over to the offices to pay the remainder of the fee and then back to the tandem portacabin to sign up for the camera man - 50 still photos and a DVD for £140. I wasn't going to bother, but they pointed out that the drop zone was a quarter of a mile away from the spectator area, so the prospects of my daughter getting any shots were slim to say the least and when you're trying to raise money for charity, you need some kind evidence to prove you've done what you said you were going to do.
After that it was hang around until the briefing at 10:00 am (gosh, this is beginning to sound like an army mission with every passing sentence!). Speaking of the army, the Army Parachute Display Team, the Tigers, were also there with some competition winners who were going to do tandem jumps with them. I don't know whether their tandem jumps also involved the aerial equivalent of synchronised swimming or not. There wasn't much to do - there was a small café and some picnic tables, no shade and then a variety of light aircraft parked, if that's the right word, alongside the runway. Sometime after 10 am my parents turned up to watch and then shortly after that, probably getting on for 10:30 am, the jumpers were called in to the portacabin for the briefing. We were talked through what was going to happen and how terrified we would be; the harness and how each of us would be attached to the instructor was explained in great detail. We got to look at the protective clothing and found out what the protocol was in the event of suffering from motion sickness. For the record, the instructors carry sick bags in their pockets as they're not too keen on finding out you're feeling unwell via any other method than verbally. I guess nobody likes a face full of vomit! We also had to balance precariously on the edge of our chairs and kneel on the floor to practice various positions - how to hang precariously from the edge of the plane prior to launching into the unknown, free fall position and also a timed trial of holding your legs straight out for six seconds to simulate the landing position. Last of all we got to watch a video of a woman experiencing the whole thing, with the instructor pointing out how petrified she looked before jumping (like we hadn't noticed that!) and how happy she was once back on terra firma. I'm not sure whether that was due to the euphoria of completing her jump or the relief at being on solid ground.
Training completed it was back outside to await my turn. The first four hopefuls went off pretty soon after the briefing session and we watched as they came down, getting a nice surprise when their parachutes opened up; although they didn't seem to be that high up at this point, it was virtually impossible to see the before deploying their parachutes. After the first group were safely back nothing much else happened. I was on tenterhooks, definitely feeling apprehensive if not downright scared, and I just wanted to get it over and done with. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. The wind picked up a bit, which proved to be difficult. Tandem skydiving can't take place with winds above 20 knots, or at least not at Headcorn it can't and for the rest of the day there were gusts of 22 or 24 knots. Eventually, my parents having left at 2:00 pm, I decided to call it a day and rebook. This was at about 5:00 pm. I had very little cash left, the only food available was crisps and chocolate and we were both starving! I'd learnt earlier that skydiving on an empty stomach is more likely to make a person feel sick, so you needed to eat and drink regularly. Also, whilst the wind had dropped slightly at around 3:00 pm, it had then got back up again, so it wasn't looking like there'd be any jumping any time soon. The final nail in the coffin that led me to rebook was that the Tigers were still there, but had to leave by 6;00 PM, as they had a long drive to Glasgow for two sows they were doing there over the weekend, so I was a little concerned that the competition winners might be fast-tracked ahead of some of the other jumpers.
So to cut a long story short, I spent all day at Headcorn and didn't get to do my skydive. On the plus side, I've rebooked it for next Wednesday - July 24th and I get priority, so providing the weather is okay, I can virtually guarantee I'll be in the first group to go up. On the down side, I've had all weekend and a couple more days still to come to think about all the parts of this endeavour that are really freaking me out, making it doubly hard to go back and do what I originally planned to do - throw myself out of an aeroplane from a great height and hurtle towards the earth! My instructor had better be attractive, that's all I can say!
Only a couple of days to go now till my first big event of the 'fifty firsts'. The weather's looking good - warm, sunny, clear visibility and no more than a slight breeze at most. My skydive is virtually guaranteed to go ahead then, and the money is still coming in: £449.25 without gift aid, but if there's anyone out there who also wants to contribute ...
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AlisonForsyth1
I'm actually really looking forward to it. I mean I guess I'll be a bit nervous or scared on the day, but I'm sure I'll be like a toddler when I get back down to earth - 'Again! Again!'
This week I have added a couple more firsts. To begin with I've learnt to crochet. So what, you might be thinking and you're probably right, because to be honest, what I've actually achieved is mainly making a chain and creating a few slip stitches, which are essentially a chain. Not quite so impressive now, is it? Well, I'm selling myself a little short really, because I have progressed on to about four rows of double crochet and two rows of treble crochet, although I haven't actually crocheted anything specific, just some 'practice'. I bet there's people out there who, if they read this, would be thinking 'Oh please! Really? You call that mastering crochet? My cat could do better and make a cradle whilst snoozing in the sun under the hedge and keeping half an eye on the birds in next door's garden!' And they'd probably be right. But to me it's a big deal - I've tried to learn before but never got further than the chain part of the proceedings, which has been quite hard to deal with, as I'm a proficient knitter, sewer, embroiderer, cross stitch maker and tapestrist (is that even a word?) so have always had high expectations that crochet would be quite easy to pick up. Well, the part where I got hold of the wool with one hand and the crochet hook with the other was fine, it was doing something with them, other than putting them down, that was the tricky bit. Of course in my defence, I should point out that the last time I actually tried to crochet was when I was about ten, so perhaps my failure was more to do with fine motor skills and cognitive functioning not being fully developed. The question now is whether or not I actually have to make a specific something, you know like a tea cosy or pot cover, to claim to have mastered crocheting? I've tried canvassing opinion locally and that seems to indicate that I should produce some kind of finished article, so it seems I'll have to persevere a while longer before claiming this as a first.
As for my other first, I think I'll save that for another day. I need to psych myself up for admitting to this one! Now that's got you wondering ;)
So a couple of weeks ago I bought a ticket for the EuroMillions. Nothing unusual in that I suppose, except up until that point I'd been a EuroMillions virgin. I'd bought the odd National Lottery ticket now and again, but I've never been the sort of person who wins raffle prizes willy nilly, so in all honesty I'd always thought it a waste of time and money. But the EuroMillions, well it was a slightly different story. For starters, there's way more money at stake and in any case, it was another of the fifty things to tick off my list. So I waited till there was a sizeable amount up for grabs, not because I'm materialistic and greedy, but the more you win the more good you can do with it and still have some left over for a few treats. Top of the wish list would definitely be a season ticket at Anfield!
Anyway, back to the lottery ticket. How do people go about choosing their numbers? For some it's about meaningful dates, such as birthdays, whilst for others it's purely random, either chosen by them or a lucky dip by computer. Me? Well, on my rare forays into such territory, I like to 'feel' the numbers. I've always had an uncanny ability to predict the sex of an unborn child with 90% plus accuracy, but to be fair, it is a fifty-fifty choice and not as many random combinations! But a little help is always useful, so I consulted the world of astrology to shed some light on my lucky numbers. Now according to my book of Aries horoscope 2013, which is quite clearly, for any of you doubters out there, the oracle of truth, my ruling planet is the moon. Yes, I know, I've already run into some trouble here, because despite my scientific career amounting to no more than a C grade for O Level Physical science, even I know the moon isn't a planet, but let's just go with the flow, shall we? OK, so far so good, I have a ruling planet, which I should point out is only for this current year. You work out what it is by adding up the individual letter scores for your name, in a Scrabble style way but without the double or triple squares, and then adding the total to the digits of the year, before repeatedly adding the digits of the final total together until you get a single digit that represents your ruling planet. Did you follow that? For me this is 2, aka the moon - simple and completely scientific (the method, not me)! The next step is to read through a load of waffle about what the moon is going to do for you in 2013, before stumbling across your lucky numbers at the bottom of the page, in my case: 2, 11, 20, 29 and 38. Excellent, these numbers, which have the common factor of being either bigger or smaller than the next or previous number in the series by nine (is that significant?) then become my five numbers for the EuroMillions ticket, leaving me just the two lucky stars numbers to pick. At this point I resorted to the methods employed by other people and picked one significant date, my birthday, and one number at random, which happened to be eight.
I was quite excited by the prospect of my bank account swelling by several millions, after all, what could go wrong? There was a pattern to my main numbers and when I filled out the sheet with my choices before buying the ticket, they moved diagonally down the paper like a short flight of stairs; it must have been some kind of omen! I didn't want to tempt fate, so waited until late at night before checking the winning numbers. And this is where my plan began to fall apart, and I can only put it down to beginner's luck, because I didn't win. Nothing, not a single penny, I think one of my numbers came up, but that was it. So my first ever ticket for the EuroMillions draw was completely unsuccessful, which was a shame, because if I'd won I could have crossed two things off my list of fifty firsts - buying a ticket and becoming a millionaire!
So it was not to be, I'm afraid, but there is a post script to add to this story. I went back to the book of everything Aries, looking for answers and I think I've found them! When reading about how my ruling planet for 2013 is going to help me out, I neglected to take on board what it said about improving my luck. I know! How ridiculous is that? You'd have thought I'd have wanted to maximise my chances by doing it properly, wouldn't you! Anyway, I discovered that first of all July is going to fulfil some of my dreams - I bought the ticket in June, which was clearly my first mistake, and I'm glossing over the 'some' part of that sentence. Then my second mistake - Mondays are going to be luckiest for me: I bought my ticket on a Tuesday, typical, one day too late, but a month early! Thirdly, I'm going to be particularly fortunate between midnight and 1 am, 7 and 8 am, 2 and 3 pm and 9 and 10 pm. So wrong month, wrong day and wrong time, because I bought my ticket at about 6:30 pm, hence why I didn't win of course. But, it doesn't quite end there. As I said, winning would also be a first, so I figure that means I can try again and as luck would have it, when I checked those lucky numbers, 2, 11, 20, 29 and 38, the only one that fell on a Monday in July was 29. So on Monday 29th July 2013, most probably between 2 and 3 pm, I shall be buying a ticket for the EuroMillions and this time I'll make sure that one of my lucky star numbers is 9. Now surely that can't fail, can it?
