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Over The Edge: How It Started

In mid-August 2017 I learned that my company, with which I have worked for twelve years, lost the contract for the project where I was based, following a tender that took place a year ahead of schedule. The tender was won by a small organization, previously unheard of in London, a fact that brought a great deal of embarrassment to my old employers. I was leaving my old company anyway. It wasn’t so much the job I was doing – although according to certain advisers I was under-labelled and underpaid – it was more about the dynamics with the two people I worked with the closest. Things came to a head in summer and after some consideration I decided to leave (not without a fight, but I was leaving). I got an interview for the first job I applied. It was at this time that I learned that we lost the contract. I then had second thoughts and decided to stay for a while, bide my time and see what happened. I cancelled my interview and sat tight. Consultations started soon for our transf
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6. April: Six Months On...

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5. March: The 10k Challenge

6th March I open my email in the morning to find a message from Vitality with an invitation to upgrade from my usual 5k run to a 10k one in 10 weeks and run a 10k event organised in London in May. I look at the email uninterested and I move on to the next message. A week ago my friend Mel had told me she was training for a 7k race and asked me if I wanted to join her. She hadn't done a 7k before and was looking for a training buddy. Flattered as I was, I declined. I struggle with the 5k run as it is. It was Mel who first introduced me to the 5k timed races with ParkRun about a year ago. I had been running for over a couple of years prior to that, both at the gym and on the road or in local parks, but I was running by myself, and I was thinking about joining a club. Mel had just then come across these free, timed races that seemed to be popping up in every town and city across the country, she said. Surely, there had to be one in London. I decided to give it a go, especially
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The Sunshine Blogger Award

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I’m delighted to announce that I was nominated by a fellow blogger for the Sunshine Blogger Award. Many thanks to Catriona at https://worldwidefootprintsblog.wordpress.com for the nomination. This is an award by bloggers to new bloggers, to recognise achievement and offer support. A lovely welcome into the Blogger Community! The 10 questions I have been given to answer are: 1.       What is your niche whilst blogging? My blog is essentially a diary of new and exciting things I’ve done since taking redundancy from my previous job in November last year. It includes travel, but also personal challenges such as surfing, horse riding and skydiving. It’s a living creature and it will evolve as I continue to explore my new life. 2.       What do you see yourself doing in 3 years time? I want to write more and publish, travel to Australia (never been!) and run a Marathon! 3.       What has been your favourite place you have visited so far? That must be the Algarve,
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4. February: Skydiving above Stonehenge

Saturday,  24 th February.   The small plane gathers speed on the grassy airfield and I expect it to take off any moment. It’s a bumpy ride, which makes me feel more like on a tractor than on a plane, and the noise is astounding. I have never been inside an un-pressurised aircraft before. The closest I had come to the experience was flying in a passengers’ helicopter some years ago, but it was nothing like this. I welcome the noise and the bumpiness though, they dull my senses and give my mind something else to focus on, other than the reason why I am inside this aircraft. And the reason is, I am jumping from this plane when we reach 10 000 feet. It’s my skydive day, an event I have looked forward to with anticipation for some time now. I am going to dive in tandem with an instructor, from nearly 2 miles above the earth, with a free fall of half a minute. Thirty seconds, to be more precise.   Followed by a parachute glide for about five minutes. This is at an airfield in the S
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3. January: What, horseriding? How about skydiving?

Saturday 6 th January The 5k run this morning takes me to a new place which, unlike the track where I’ve done the timed races so far, is as flat as a pancake. I’ve chosen it for this reason. I want to explore something different. My exploration today is the relationship between the pancake-like factor and speed. I wonder how much faster I’d be on a flat track. It is a very cold morning though, only two degrees Celsius, the effects of which can be seen in the thick layer of ice that has descended over my car and on my breath as it meets the fresh air. So I really wonder how I’m going to do. I turn up to the meeting point nice and early, with quiet confidence, only to discover that there are just four people present, three of whom are the organisers. It’s the first week of January, and no one knows how many people are going to turn up. My confidence gets as flat as the track. Is the race going ahead at all? Within ten minutes though, over two hundred runners gather and I’m in
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2. December: Yoga, and How I travelled to Scotland Twice In A Day

Friday 1 st December   It’s December and I am in London. Not travelling. A number of prior commitments keep me in the city for the first half of the month, so I decide that during this time I will carry on with the Yoga, running and writing, as well as the voluntary work with the book charity. Then later in the month I’ll do some more travelling.   Monday 4 th December My choice today at the book charity is the more sensible option of a list of literature and fiction books to pick. I leave the heavy medicine tomes to someone else. The really curious thing is that whilst I deal with the books on my list, my mind keeps going back to an image of myself on a large wave, riding down diagonally on this blue water slope. I can picture myself there, as though I was looking at myself from the shore, and I can picture myself being there, inhabiting the picture, surfing down. And I do that without holding my breath or cringing. This image is something novel – a few day
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