Frances and Elizabeth’s Parachute Jump

Posted Dec 11, 10:38

Elizabeth and I would like to thank everyone for sponsoring us for our parachute jump. We raised £1235 in total and this will be divided equally between L’Arche and CCLASP. It seems so long ago!

We arrived at Strathallen early in the morning and on our arrival we had our first glimpse of the plane we would have to go up in. It was very small with just a gap in the side where the door should be. Did we have second thoughts? Never!

After we recovered from that, we had our briefing which consisted of a short film telling us how we would have to sit on the very edge of the “door” of the plane and just launch ourselves into space. Did we have second thoughts? Well………… Because of cloud the tandem jumps could not go ahead till around 4o’clock. We comforted ourselves in the nice café and the condemned pair ate a hearty meal. At about 5o’clock our names were called and there was no going back. We got into our flying gear and met the guys who we would be jumping with. I got the nice looking one!

It took us about 20 minutes to ascend to 10,000 ft and the scenery was spectacular. Once above the clouds it was time to go. Because Elizabeth was getting a DVD recording I had to jump first. The journey down was slightly faster! Free-falling was absolutely breathtaking. We fell for about 30 seconds and then the parachute opened. Once the parachute opened and we were just floating around the complete stillness was wonderful. The feeling of peace was so intense. But we had to land and even that was good – to feel our feet back on solid ground.

What a wonderful day. We laughed all the way home because we were still on a ‘high’. I don’t think we could believe that we had done it. When we got home we had a well-earned glass of champagne to celebrate. To be highly recommended – both the jump and the champagne!

Frances Robertson

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