Yes, I believe they do. You may remember a post a couple of weeks back about four very brave froggers (me, Nick, Lucy and Ben P) who were about to jump out of a plane for Rockinghorse Children’s Charity……….well we did it and a week later I am still here to tell you the tale.
At 6:30am on a foggy Saturday morning we set off from Brighton heading towards Kent, many nervous giggles echoing around the hire car. When we arrived at Headcorn there was quite a chill in the air and we couldn’t see much of the sky or the airfield.
We registered ourselves at the tandem meeting point with another 30 jumpers. There was no going back now, they knew we were there and it was communicated to us that if we didn’t come when called for the jump they WOULD find us!
After we were briefed by a very interesting character, who insisted on lightning the mood with some very bad jokes, the only thing we could do was to sit patiently while the sun burnt through the clouds and of course treat ourselves to a bacon or egg sandwich.
A lot of time passed (5 hours to be exact) of nervous pacing while watching all the other brave people descend from the sky attached to an array of colourful parachutes when finally we heard our names called. I can’t describe the relief and fear that passed through my body but all I could think about was getting in that attractive jumpsuit and leaping out of a plane for a very good cause. We all got into our harnesses with help from our lovely instructors and were good to go.
The most nerve racking bit was the minibus over to the plane and the 15 minute ascent to 12,000 feet. The view was stunning and it all felt very unreal. Before I knew it the door of the plane opened and the first single jumper disappeared out of sight, next up was Nick, then Ben, then Lucy and finally me. My legs were out underneath the plane, head on my instructor’s shoulder, 1,2,3 and we were off. None of us can describe that feeling of freefalling for 45 seconds but it was the best feeling in the world and we all want to experience it again!
Once the parachutes were up we all glided back down to earth which took about 5 minutes. We were allowed to take control of the parachute and have a bit of fun at the same time by spiralling ourselves and the parachute round, scary but a huge adrenaline rush. We all started to line up like we were at Heathrow airport ready to land, I was the last to hit the ground and once unhooked from my instructor I ran over to the rest of the gang for a hugs and a few tears of joy.
We were all on cloud nine and couldn’t quite believe we had actually done it. In total we raised £1745 (£2068.25 with Gift Aid) for Rockinghorse which we are very proud and pleased about, so thankyou to all our wonderful supporters for being so generous.
Please watch this space for the next dare devil activity we throw ourselves into for charity and also what we are getting up to in the Leapfrogg MasterChef.