Jump!

I LOVE an adrenaline rush.

Don't get me wrong, I get bloomin' nervous, but I love the rush of excitement as you do something crazy - rollercoasters, climbing the O2 or even ya know, jumping out a plane. As you do.

No biggie.




When I was about 15 my Mum did a skydive for a charity that I now regularly do Walk the Wight for with a lot of people from her work. I remember watching her video (yeah, it was THAT long ago that we all huddled round the Video player) and just thinking how much I would love to do that.

She's always said that she wouldn't want to do another one - she's done it now and that was enough for her. So it got round to 2014 and after years of putting it off me and my Stepdad finally did it and registered to do a skydive. We both needed to do one out of stubbornness as my Mum was always going on about how she's done it but we hadn't... HA.

We booked to do it at 'Go Skydive' in Salisbury to raise money for the wonderful Earl Mountbatten Hospice  who did a lot for my Mums Mum, my Mum and also me with my CBT. They're really wonderful people. I did in the end raise around £500 with my stepdad for them, which I'm really happy about.

Skydiving is expensive. I won't beat around the bush. When I signed up to do it they give you a minimum amount you have to raise to do the skydive, but we didn't want to do it like this. We wanted all of the money that wonderful people gave to us to go to the charity - not to me getting to fulfil a lifetime ambition. So I paid for the skydive myself as well as getting it all videoed and photo'd and it came to around £500 (rough guesstimate). Best money I've ever spent.

So on the 25th July 2015, me, my Mum, my wee brother Jack, my stepdad and his Mum headed over on the car ferry to Salisbury. I remember I'd been having the nightmares for a week or so, and people kept texting me saying good luck but it still didn't really seem nervous. Once we got there we had quite a long wait, as you go in for like your 'training' with everyone thats going to be doing it that day and then you all get slotted in order. We, of course, were last. My stepdad was really nervous, but I can't remember being that nervous at all when we were on the ground. I just remember wanting to get it over and done with after waiting for so long. Although when it got to the time where we had all our safety bits and bobs checked I did have a little flutter in my belly.

AND THE PLANE. Ahmagerd the plane. I can't sit in trains going backwards because it makes me feel sick so imagine being in a tiny plane going backwards. When I say tiny, I mean it's like a little tin pot plane that you play with as a kid. Honestly, after going up in that I just wanted to jump out the plane to get out of it! As we shuffled towards the edge of the plane with the cameraman hanging out the plane getting video of us I though 'right...what the fluff am I doing?!?!?!?' TOO LATE. My legs were hanging over the edge of the plane and I made the fatal mistake of looking down, my skydive buddy man pulled my head up to look at the camera, said 'are you ready?' to which I hastily replied 'NO' and we were off! We jumped out the plane at 15,000 ft into the air.


It is the most incredible thing, plummeting towards Earth with absolutely nothing you can do about it. It happens so fast that you don't really get chance to look around and take it in. All I really remember is that a) I screamed as we jumped and my mouth got stuck like that for the whole jump, leading to some great photos and b) in the training they tell you to give the camera a thumbs up which is why in all the pictures I look like Wallace giving a really fake thumbs up. When the parachute went up it really hurt, erm, down there but it was so nice to be able to have a look around, and I even got a chance on the controls (is that what they are??) I was super worried about the landing but it really was quite smooth and just meant holding ya legs up really high for a bit which mega hurt but ya know.

Doing a skydive was one of the best things I've ever bucked up the courage to do. I would totally recommend doing one with Go Skydive as they were all absolutely lovely, they calmed our nerves, the video (shown below) was fab and the whole experience was incredible. I would really love to do a bungee but I can't because I was born with a dislocated hip, so I will just have to settle to doing another skydive eh. Me and my brother (not the seven year old one... yet) are looking into doing one and I will definitely be going with these guys again.

#PRREQUEST a big bloggers skydive eh? ;)