Month: May 2008

We were going to pop to the park, as we had no big plans, but a quick phone call later and we were off to Jordan Lake for a picnic. Amanda kindly offered to make scones, Howard stepped up to the mark with a background yell that he would bring the tea, so all that was left for us to do was dig out the Christmas rations of clotted cream, the food parcel offerings of Cadbury’s chocolate and make some cucumber sandwiches.

She managed to raise $150 and couldn’t have done that without you – take a bow!

Of course Daddy and Amanda had to have a go too ;0)

Thank you again everyone.

This weekend we went to the local theme park, it was just over 2 and a half hours away, but that’s pretty local to most Americans, except probably New Yorkers who seem to be a bit like Londoners who generally think, that ‘The West Country’ is whatever comes after Hammersmith… but anyway at the park there is what you could probably call a giant swing. There is an enourmous arch, from which a pair of steel cables hang down. A third cable is connected to a pilon, about 150 ft back, and 150 ft high. You each step into an oversized bib, the sort of thing that hang-gliders use (apparently). Anyhow everyone gets hooked together, and then winched up the pilon. Then one of the ‘flyers’ pulls the ripcord and you swoop down.. The scariest part is immediately after the cord is pulled, and before there is any tension in the swing cables. At that point you are in a very short and unexpected freefall before accelerating towards the ground at around 60 mph. We have a video on youtube here