Back in May I was invited to take part in a skydive. Jumping out of a plane is high on my midlife crisis bucket list and these opportunities don't come along very often, do they? The event was cancelled due to bad weather a few times but eventually the rain clouds cleared and it was GO, GO, GO!
My husband drove me to the Skydive NorthWest centre in Flookburgh (just north of Lancaster) and I met up with the other divers of the day. We had about 20 minutes training which explained that the instructors that we would be paired with for our tandem dive really know their stuff having jumped out of planes thousands of times. We learnt how to help the instructors to make our experience safer and more enjoyable by learning three jumping and landing positions.
And then we were off... up, up and away.
(Brian was my tandem instructor and Gary filmed my dive)
I love flying and being in this small plane took me right back to when I learnt to fly and glide with the Air Training Corps. Gary was filming and snapping pictures for me and Brian was checking the harnesses and pointing out the sights of the North West to me. We could see over the Lake District, the whole of Morecambe Bay and even the outline of the Isle of Man. Being in the air is an amazing place to be and I love to see the shape of the land from a privileged position (hence my obsession with Planescapes).
I only had one moment when I might have regretted my decision and that was when I was sat on the edge of the plane. But there was no turning back as Brian flung us out into the air, we went into freefall for a minute or so and then he opened our 'chute. In fact, you can watch the whole experience here:
It's really easy to sponsor me
As you know, each year I raise money for Cancer Research UK. This year I have taken part in the Race For Life in Blackburn with my own cancer survivor - my daughter Rachel - and I have jumped out of this plane. Later this year I'll be running another 5K and all contributions to the fund are very welcome. You can visit my fundraising page or donate by texting NMLC99 and your donation amount to 70070.
Huge thanks to Chicago Town for funding the skydive. We sampled some Chicago Town pizzas whilst waiting for our turn at the Skydive Centre and they are DELISH! They pride themselves on delivering a freshly cooked pizza straight from your freezer and manage this by quickly freezing the freshly made pizza rather than pre-baking it.