Hymn

No Go

I’m not very good at Reading the Signs.  I shouldn’t have pushed my luck after arriving at the airfield and getting on a lift immediately.  It was going so well - thought I’d go for another.  However, the second lift was delayed by 90 minutes because we had to search for a girl who had missed the airfield.  She’s landed (safely) more than two miles from the drop zone.  A Club Record.

I’ve not seen it happen before.  Someone refusing to jump.  Twice.  It is bloody scary so everyone was pretty sympathetic.  Until, that is, we realised the consequences of his refusal.  We all had to go back - in the plane - because of the Rules.  As we touched down, thunderous storm clouds appeared from nowhere.  And, for some nannyingly soft reason, They don’t like planes flying in thunder and lightning.  Or skydivers jumping through it.  Losers.

Lock Em Up

We haven’t been in ages so I thought I’d check how our local gym is investing our unused subscription.  It was a squeeze to get past the Bentleys and Ferraris in Staff Parking but nice to see they’ve ripped out a couple of internal walls in our absence leaving no place to hide from the Body Beautifuls.  They are, I suppose, an Inspiration To Us All.  The other ‘improvement’ was the removal of the coin-operated lockers.  For those members who don’t pack a padlock as part of their gym kit (i.e. all of us), the new Members’ Support Zone (that’s a shop to you and me) sells combination locks at a paltry £8.99.  That’s sort of fine, in a twisted customer-service sort of way, except now, without the incentive of reclaiming pound coins, and the potentially cumbersome 30kg padlock to lug back and forth, many of the Bodies have done the only sensible thing and claimed a locker for themselves.  Permanently.  Two hundred and thirty eight lockers and I’m left to fight over the last open one with a one-armed ex-Railway man from Daventry.  Worth every penny.

Cloud Spotting

I’ve lost track of the number of hours I’ve sat at the airfield waiting for the weather to clear.  This morning I left a sleeping mother and baby and drove down hoping to exploit the recent spell of clear skies.  Except, of course, today the sky was impenetrably grey.  I waited a couple of fruitless hours before going home.  As if I didn’t feel bad enough scurrying away to indulge myself, I waste a whole morning and have the expense of travelling there and back.  Bloody clouds.

Rotten

I know, from an earlier disagreeable incident, that the pool needs disinfectant but I’m beginning to wonder if the chlorine isn’t a tad too strong.  I’ve just worn out my second pair of trunks this year.  Rotted by warfare strength chemicals.  One thing baffles me though, why is the first area to disappear always the Bum Crack?  Always the arse.  And why do I never notice until after the swim, after leaving the pool, and after walking through the changing rooms full of the local rugby team?

Paint Bawl

I spent yesterday in the woods.  Being shot at.  Today we reminisced over coffee - the Battle of the Wooden Tanks, The Siege of the Chipboard Fort and the Oil Drum Massacre.  We compared battle injuries: aching limbs, not stretched from heroic charges but stiff from prolonged crouching trying to hide, and wounds, welts actually, from those moments of madness when movement seemed possible.

War! Huh. What is it good for?

Shared Secret

Never ever again. Nope.  Never ever.  Everyone does it.  But I will not do it again.  Tonight, merrily swimming back and forth, minding my own business, a little train of swimmers.  Then it happened.  A yellow cloud.  Right in my path.  Right in front of my face.  Warm and slightly misty.  In my face.  IN MY FACE.  And let me tell you - gulping in panic does not help.

Wind bag

It’s the largest vertical wind tunnel in the world apparently.  Ex-MoD.  I’m not that experienced but after watching the formations flying before us, I thought: that looks easy.  Session 1.  Slightly timidly launched myself into the air stream only to sink straight to the floor.  “De-arch to rise,” he’d said.  90 seconds of wrestling later I’d enjoyed a few fractions of a second off the bottom grill.  Session 2.  Every time I followed the Instructor’s directions I’d sink.  I’d de-arch and tumble around like a leaf for a moment.  Not happy. Two thirds gone - no flight whatsoever.  Session 3.  Exactly the damn same. Furious.  Only in the debrief I am told that he’s trying to keep me on the floor.  If I’d wanted to lay on the floor I could have stayed in my lounge and not travelled half way across the country and pissed £30 away in five minutes.

Anvil

I haven’t felt in much of a rush to progress but today I thought I’d give it go: a 2-way - that’s skydiving with someone else.  Part of my trouble is the pressure I feel to not let the other person down.  I don’t want to be crap.  At 12,000 feet, he stands on the outside of the plane and I latch on.  Frankly, it’s a coupling that feels a bit too intimate for strangers. But I’m doing as I’m told.  In fact, I’m so concerned about doing exactly what he told me, I forget to think for myself. As he enters the air stream first, I have to make a position that levels us off.  I do that but fail to release it.  Pretty soon, and in freefall that’s a long time, we’re dropping vertically; all I can see is the sky and his increasingly concerned face.  I am an anvil.  I’m determined not to loose my grip and look like a wuss so I’m clinging on for grim death.  Tic toc, down we go.  He shakes his head.  I nod in return.  Tic toc.  He shakes me.  It’s all right, I return, I’ve got you.  Tic toc.  Then it dawns on me.  I let go.  I check my altimeter.  Where’s all that height gone?  It’s time to pull my ripcord.  Actually, it was time to pull a couple of seconds ago.  I pull.  Done wonders for my confidence.  And his.

Onwards and Downwards

Finally.  After another three attempts today, I’ve done it.  My first one was an example of exactly what not to do.  There seemed so much to do within the time.  I panicked trying to fit it all in and completing the manoeuvres became a dangerously overriding concern.  The second was better but still not right - still too low at the end.  My mounting frustration didn’t help.  I’d just about written the day off when there was a slot on the last lift.  And did it.  Perfect-ish jump - certainly good enough to qualify.  Thank Heavens.

Dying to Deceive

I finally got to take the test this afternoon.  I was desperate to pass but knew I’d messed it up.  I left feeling utterly despondent; not because I’d failed but because I deceitfully said I’d meant to do it in that way.  Thankfully, he wasn’t so easily conned.  But I feel like a worm.