Page 340 - She's One Crazy Lady!

It was a war“
at Isham Primary School – Nicky was diagnosed with breast cancer – we had a lot in common. They were such a fun-loving, close and pro-active family and all had hearts of gold, helping to organise many fundraisers for Crazy Hats and Cystic Fibrosis, a charity dear to them due to Nicky’s daughter having it – their Barn Dances at the former Embankment Club were the best! Sadly the cancer got the better of Nicky and she passed away – far too young. Her funeral at Orlingbury was attended by hundreds. Even then, her family thought of others and presented us with a huge cheque to continue with our work, as per Nicky’s wishes.
Heather and I had gone over to Sibson Airfield to support the ‘jumpers’ and watching them, I knew I had to fulfil my pledge of doing a skydive. Gulp! So, in 2006 we organised a large group to take to the skies. We were inundated with applications. Dr Matthew, nurses from Breast Screening at NGH, Jan Oates, Michelle, a nurse from LRI, a number of staff from Specsavers and even more staff from Tingdene taking part – nineteen of us in total! What were we thinking of? With our personally-designed t-shirts printed by Angelina we met up at Sibson for the debriefing and were put into groups – my group going
m, sunny day so you could see for miles. Chris, my instructor, asked if I wanted to do any acrobatics? O!
last – my group that consisted of Dr Matthew, Jan and Michell – all people that, in theory, had saved my life and here I was asking them to throw themselves out of a plane! One of the men in a different group had never flown before!
The funniest part of the challenge was getting into our flying suits, harnesses and helmets – the suits very snug! The scariest part was being called to the small plane, getting on the plane, rising up to 13,500 feet, watching the door open, being shuttled along to the door, standing up (attached to a very tall instructor in my case), hanging ‘outside’ the plane and being ‘pushed’ out...
340
N”
It was utterly breath-taking!!! Literally! Michelle was the first to ‘fall out’ followed by Dr Matthew, (me praying he would be OK) then it was my turn – Jan going last. My biggest fear was that my four front teeth would fall out for I had been advised to take them out (no way – I used so much ‘Polyfilla’) – but they stayed in place – thankfully. I loved it! The first 10,000 feet we were told would take about fifty seconds before the parachutes were employed. Travelling at such a silly speed was utterly exhilarating – all I could feel were my cheeks being battered. The descent under the parachute was incredible too – so, so peaceful and so quiet and the scenery – stunning! It was a warm, sunny day so you could see for miles. Chris, my instructor, asked if I wanted to do any acrobatics? NO! The land beneath me was getting