Fear of flying?

Now I'm never one to admit when I have a fear of something. Unless it's small spaces it's rare when something bothers me. 

Now, writing this post 36,000ft in the air it's sprung to my mind how much older I am, and therefore how much more aware I am that life passing me by. If the plane dropped out of the sky right now, that would, be it. The end, c'est fini.

Not to curse the rest of my flight but it feels kind of odd to look out to the jet engine, which I happen to over viewing from my surprisingly comfortable Easyjet seat and think that that particular engine is keeping tonnes upon tonnes of heavy metal and not to mention the human, living cargo alive as we motor on across the continent. Caught myself staring out at that engine for a good five minutes in wonderment of what the human race has managed to create over the years.

I love flying as a general rule. As a child I always used to sit next to my father and he'd hold my hand at take off just encase we didn't lift off the ground (Great bout of confidence in survival there, Dad.) Dad has no fear of flying at all. He enjoys the same rush as I do from life, always happy to jump onto the next adventure. Whereas my Mother always had this feeling of danger throughout. Don't get me wrong, she's a happy enough flyer but always quite cautious. She'll always spend the  week before flying a little uptight, however she's got the same fear of small spaces that I have. As much as I love flying I can totally see her point of view, I hate the thought of spending 5+ hours cooped up in a tiny seat with someone sitting next to me who happens to have a knack for elbowing my kidneys ever ten minutes.

I always find it funny, when I leave to go on holiday, Mum will ask me to send her a text upon landing to let her know I'm safe. The generic response from me being that if I hadn't landed safely, I'm quite sure she'd hear about it before I did!

I have found that, recently my survival instinct has kicked in. When I mean survival instinct, I mean the fact my brain kicks into thinking that this flight could be the last one I ever take. Morbid, eh? Such happy thoughts!  I have no idea where this has stemmed from, but it's a constant when I've flown in the past few years. I wish I knew why and as I said before, I can only put it down to having this awareness of age and life. Maybe the thought that things can be so sudden. The world is so very big, especially as you look down from this height. Makes you realise just how insignificant you really are,

On the brighter side, I am on my way for a bit more of the good side of living... Scuba heaven. Even ticking off the SS Thistlegorm from my bucket list. If that's not something to live for, I don't know what is :)

Signing off. 

J L Edwards.

Seat 8A

EZY3031

Jen's adventures... Part 1?

It's been a while, once again. Time flies when you're having fun, and personally I've been having a blast.

I was going to write a few decent blog posts from my adventures in Dahab,

Only for my iPad to pick up that I'm in Egypt and turn everything into Arabic. A slight nuisance to say the least! Especially as I'd written everything down on my notes before hand and then was unable to transfer. Now I'm back, nearly 2 weeks later and feeling far to lazy to retype it all out again. So, in a nutshell:

I made 15 dives in my new kit. I need to adjust a few things slightly, but I looked awesome, I must say! I got my deep speciality qualification. (40m). I saw some stunning coral. I saw some even more stunning fish and turtles. I drank a hell of a lot of sakara (the local beer), and learned that drinking to excess is stupid. (A lesson I tend to forget every so often). I had an amazing time with amazing friends, some new and some old. I also had a bit of a panic attack when the boyfriend got delayed on his flight home by 30 hours, but on the brighter side easyjet have compensated us... With free flights to return in the Autumn. Panic attack and his stress = well worth it!

So.. All is grand. I had the best week of my life last week really, my last dive at the  Southern Reefs was one of the best ever! I then returned home safely to go to Hard Rock Calling, of which I saw two of my favourites out of many bands, Temperance movement and the Boss. The even cooler thing was that I stood next to the Temperance movement for the whole Sprigsteen set. (How awesome is that?!)

I then proceeded to have a nice week at work, and then jumped out of a plane at the end of the week. With a parachute, and a tandem random strapped to me too... Obviously. 'Twas probably the scariest moment of my life... The physical movement to drop from the plane, I just simply cannot put into words how much I thought I was going to die. Instant thoughts of how suddenly my life is too precious began to surface as the plane started to descend above the clouds. However, as soon as I was out.. Wow. 40 seconds free fall.. I hit 128mph and boom.. The world is in front of you from and angle I never thought I'd see. The parachute opens at about 5000ft and the fun begins.. Softly and slowly through the clouds to the ground, playing and spinning as we went. No broken arms or legs, totally safe and sound. Amazing.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photographic proof, the company wanted £140 for a video, and to be honest, I'd rather add the few extra pounds and do it again! Not to mention said video would have just been me screaming profanities for a half a minute, not exactly something to be proud of!

To top it off, we had the titanic ball at the King's hall on the Saturday night. Amazing effort made by every single person that went, I felt like I'd gone back in time! Baypromo once again rocked it. Long may the town's enthusiasm for fun and craziness carry on :)

Anywho, update of sorts completed. Off on adventures for a few days next week too so I shall blog again shortly. i'm off on a magical mystery tour for the boyfriend's birthday. I hope he likes Southend at this time of year ;)