'A life lived in fear is a life half lived.' - Spanish Proverb

Back when I created my list I asked people for a list of suggestions of things I should put on it. One of the most popular things people came up with was to do a parachute jump or paraglide. At the time I rejected this idea, mainly due to me being petrified of heights, but also because I never thought I'd be able to motivate myself into organising one.  All this changed when I went on holiday though, and now I'm pleased to report that number 28 on the list is to take part in a paraglide. The more unbelievable news is that I've actually managed to cross it off!

Last month I went on a snowboarding holiday to Italy with Mick & Chris from the Meg, Danni, Chloe, Nomi, Christian, Rowan,  Gav, Belf and Spence. It was organised by Chris's Sister and in total there were 93 of us who went.  It turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life, and also the week where I'd find myself facing my biggest fear & experiencing the most terrifying moment of my life!

We'd arrived in Canazei on the Saturday afternoon, quickly checked into our hotel, dashed to the Ski-hire shop to get or snowboards and then had to rush to our welcome meeting with the Rep. Now welcome Meetings are something I'd normally avoid. I find that their sole purpose is for the rep to try and sell you as many of their 'fantastic' excursions as possible,  & you spend an hour being told how crap your holiday is going to be if you don't sign up to them all. We were forced to go to this one though as we'd pre-booked our lift passes for the mountain and had to go and collect them. Our rep's name was Jane. From the moment she opened her mouth I took an instant dislike to her, as she had the broadest Geordie accent going. Now I've got nothing against Geordies, but Jane was that unique exception, because as well as feeling like I was stuck in an episode of Biker Grove every time she spoke, she also had one of those faces which for some unbeknownst  reason you look at & get the sudden urge to wrap a shovel round. It looked like a few people might have actually done so in the past! So we're sat in the welcome meeting and Jane starts her speil... "Hi, my names Jane, and I'm a twat! I'm actually a crap rep & I'm only here so I can go out skiing for free & shag dirty Italian men at night...blah blah blah....".  Ok so that's not exactly what she said, but it might as well have been. She continued.." we've got the best snow in the world, and there's lots you can do & I'm gonna try and sell you all the trips I can so I can earn some money to spend on cheap Grappa while I'm out on the pull wearing skirts short enough to show my growler off....". By this point I was starting to doze off and then suddenly I heard the word "Paraglide". My ears perked up and I cast my eyes down the list of excursions that was on the table, and there it was.. "Paragliding – Take a tandem paraglide off the top of the Belvedere Mountain with 4 times World Paragliding champion". Now that sounds fun I thought, although there wasn't a chance in hell I'd ever book up for it. Then Danni turned round to me & said "Do you know what, I really fancy having a go at the paragliding!". I replied and told her that I did to but wouldn't do it by myself. After a few minutes discussion I made the bravest decision of my life, I was going to do it, and Danni was joining me. At this point the whole thing of what I was signing up for hadn't really sunk in. It must have been the lack of sleep, but here I was agreeing to jump off a mountain with a parachute strapped to my back, and not only that but I was going to pay 85 euro's for the privilege of doing it. Was I stupid!!! There is something fundamentally wrong with paying to chuck yourself to potential death. There was no backing out now though, I told Danni I'd do it and I wasn't going to look a pussy by pulling out.  So that was that, we went to see Jane at the end of the meeting and arranged to do it on the Wednesday afternoon at 3pm. I had 4 days before I might find myself splattered in a million pieces at bottom of a cliff.

The days slowly ticked by and before I knew it, it was Tuesday night and I was tucking myself up in bed. I'd tried to put the paraglide out of my mind all week, but it was at this moment that it suddenly hit me what I was about to do. Could I really bring myself to throw myself off a mountain? I was scared enough doing my abseil down the YMCA and that was only 100ft. This was going to be over 2km high. I get dizzy at 20 metres high, let alone 2km. When we'd booked up to do it on the first day the weather had been gorgeous, but soon after it had started to snow, and we'd had about 48 hours nonstop. If it carried on snowing would the paraglide be able to take place? I got up and looked out of the window praying for snow, but typically it had stopped. I climbed back to bed & went to sleep. An hour later I woke up. I'd just had a nightmare about breaking my legs as we landed. I tried to put it out of my mind and lay there praying it had started snowing again outside. This went on for the rest of the night. I'd sleep for about an hour and then wake up all panicked hoping more than anything it was snowing.

Finally the morning came and I opened the curtains. It was a glorious day, the sun was out and shining bright. The skies were clear, and it looked the perfect weather for a paraglide. Shit!!! We went through the normal routine, had breakfast and headed up the mountain for our snowboarding lesson and I tried to put it out of my mind. Before I knew it though it was time!!

To be continued....