The silk handkerchief 

This.

This is the moment that I fell from 12,000 feet to Earth.  A Tandem Skydive.  And it was incredible.

We decided I should go on my own to the jump party, at least at first, so the kids wouldn’t have to sit around all day and wait for something to happen.  They didn’t really understand what I was up to, I hadn’t elaborated, and whilst I was a bit stressed out and frankly rather irritating, maybe a morning without me would be welcome.  So as I left the family early doors and got in a taxi to the airfield, I wondered whether this was honestly the best way to abstain from parenting for a day.  Surely I could have just gone for a pedicure or pretended to do yoga?  I was sweaty palm apprehensive with that going on stage naked pit in my stomach.  But as expected, being on my own was better than being amongst company and I didn’t have to pretend I was feeling anything other than utterly petrified.

When I arrived at the setting for Challenge Number 1 it was 8.30am and a beautifully clear, bright day.  Perfect weather for a skydive.  After registering and signing a form to clarify that “no, I didn’t have an arrhythmia as far as I knew” and “yes, I was fine if skydiving gave me one”, I took stock of my comrades in arms.  Nearly all those present were either 1) part of a team, 2) raising money for charity and 3) with their loved ones.  So much for being on my own.  On reflection I could have done with a bit of boosting for being so brave and wonderful.  Gulp.  Did I feel small.  I was asked several times whether I was in fact really, truly on my own and what the heck I was thinking doing a thing like this for.  Rather sheepishly I admitted to my own self absorbed list making exercise.  No hero here.  Just plain daft.

Our training consisted of sitting in a room to watch a video of a hapless girlie throwing herself out of a teeny tiny plane.  Our instructor informed us that everything goes perfectly 99% of the time.  Well actually 95%.  He then lowered it to more like 85% if you counted those poor sods that pass out.  Pass out?!?  I recall I had what I only be deemed as a menopausal like flush at this moment.  Yet our instructor had nearly 2,500 jumps behind him and was totally cool about it.  The brilliance of it all, it suddenly dawned on me, was that you are not jumping out of a flying vehicle your mate is pretending to pilot, with a parachute on your back that you packed in a drunken stupor and got a cat to check over.  This is a highly regulated operation.  You’re awholebunch% more likely to be struck down by a rogue coconut on a beach than perish during skydive apparently.  So that was one fear alleviated.  I may well have still had a heart attack or passed out as described.  But the trick to the latter (no tips for the former) was not to jump on an empty stomach.  So after our training of crossing and recrossing our arms was completed, I did the noble thing and hurriedly scoffed a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a Kit Kat and a Twix for good measure.  And in brilliantly British fashion I drank tea.  A lot of tea.  And thanks to that I had about 7 panic wees ahead of my name moving up the list to “Stand-by”.

It turns out it takes a long time to wait for a leap like this.  And whilst waiting I watched those in the groups ahead of mine do their jumps.  The little planes which ferry everyone to altitude, like Serengeti vultures circling in reverse, are intermittently blinded from view by the sunshine.  Watching them, my nerves on a knife’s edge and my neck arched back and aching, seemed like good practise for the arc position we needed to make on exiting the aircraft.  Any other body shape and you risk spinning out of control.  Yuck.

FINALLY at 2pm it’s my turn to kit up.  My family had arrived by this time and were ready for some cheerleading.  I considered that I probably shouldn’t have had that dodgy burger for lunch, but it was all too late by then.  A light, tight and decidedly unflattering blue jumpsuit came my way and a waddle inducing harness to boot.  Not hot.  And my faith was then seriously scuppered when I met my tandem accomplice.  The lovely Garry.  He had to have been at least a foot shorter, definitely a stone lighter and a good 20 summers older than me.  Why oh why wasn’t I cast with the 6’4″ Biggles look a like?  But when he told me that he had done about a gazillion dives in his life, that you get paired with people who weigh the same as you (hooray, I’m not colossal!) and no, you don’t get that rollercoaster dip feeling on exiting the plane, I could have kissed him.  The last point particularly resonated in my distracted, tea-ed up brain.  Why the hell had nobody told me this before?  I had spent the last week experiencing a recurring Moro Reflex nightmare on first falling asleep like some overgrown infant orang-utan.  The fact should be integrated into all skydiving marketing campaigns. “Skydiving: It won’t make you feel like you have left your insides 20 feet above you”.  Apparently as you’re already travelling pretty fast when you exit the plane, your velocity isn’t really affected by tummy gymnastics.  Yippee!  I can’t tell you how much better I felt.  Now I was ready.

This “go-time” sentiment was certainly not shared with all those in my group as we got in to our little aircraft and it’s elevation rose.  Some of the lads went an ashen, waxy grey.  But I started to feel excited.  Who knew?  And then the game was on.  I shuffled to the doorway, my feet dangling over the clouds, back to belly with Garry, my heart rate increasing as I put my head back against my main man’s shoulder and then…

I’m gone!

There are no words to describe free-falling out of a plane.  It is unlike anything I have ever experienced.  A bit like doing a chaotic, toddler styled forward roll but somehow feeling like it looked as though you were in Cirque du Soleil the entire time.  And all in mid-air whilst hovering over the top of a patch worked Google Maps quilt in a wind machine.  Not in the sexy Beyoncé manner cruelly, but in a “will my face recover from being this stretched” kind of way.  Unexpectedly, I didn’t get a sense of being so high, vertigo didn’t come in to it.  Perhaps it’s too surreal and you just can’t register the height.  But the noise was overwhelming.  Wind rushing and blood pumping.  You have to scream or shout so you can catch your breath, so I must have OMGed it approximately 57 times, which was predictably enjoyable.  But could I hear?  Not one bit.  I put my arms out in winged bat formation as taught and like a labrador out the car window I looked around to survey the scene.  12,000 feet is almost 2 and a half miles high.  I can jog that in 20 odd minutes but in its entirety the dive takes just seven.  45 seconds of free fall felt a lot longer than it was, though perhaps not quite long enough to have a conversation about the FBI with Keanu Reeves.  What a farce that was.

And then comes the parachute thanks to the now raised to living legend status; Garry, the life saving tandem guy.  The silk handkerchief caught us!  It turns out my bottom is as cushioned as I thought it was, (thank you bread and pasta for your help with that) and there wasn’t too much pressure on the baby punch bag which was once known as my bladder.  Swirling, soaring over the horizon, eye spying towns that I knew and glimpsing the coastline stretching into the distance was utterly, breathtakingly glorious.  It was slightly unnerving to see two planes and a helicopter, toy like and teeny, taking off beneath my feet, but who cared when I was flying like a gigantic, gangly blue flamingo?

And then it was over.  Almost as soon as it had begun.  We were approaching the ground and landing as prescribed with legs stretched out and arse to grass.  I don’t think I have been so pleased to see my husband since I turned right up the church aisle and realised it wasn’t a dream and that he was going to marry me…  And my kids, well, they appeared even more awesome than usual.  Euphoria everywhere.  I was alive!

So what have I learnt from this challenge?  Fortune favours the bold.  Just get on and do it.  And boy oh boy could I do it again.  And again and again 🙂

You can view my kind of silly yet ridiculously worth it, twat voiced, fish eyed, face wobbling video here.  And if you fancy a free fall yourself then pray for clear skies, pack a picnic and call me x