Scaring Myself Silly

Down at the National Diving and Activity Centre (NDAC) in Chepstow lives a 700 metre long zip wire, suspended 70m above the 80m deep flooded quarry. It's one of the fastest zip wires in the UK, reaching speeds of up to 40 mph.

Now I hate heights. Terrified. In fact, I'm not even that fond of going fast. Thrill seeker I most certainly am not.

So, this is why, when the opportunity to ride this zip wire and raise money for Macmillan came up a couple of months ago, I jumped at it along with a few of the ladies from the office. What better way to raise some money for a very worthy charity than to scare yourself absolutely witless?

The next few months went by in a flash, and as we raised money through our Just Giving site and via sponsor forms, I had the occasional 'I'm so scared' moment, but didn't allow myself to give it much thought.

On the morning of the Zip Wire, the 6 of us made our way up to the top of the quarry. And that's when it got scary. There is no way on earth I would have gone through with it if we hadn't raised the money that we already had, as I was having a right big wussy moment.

A friendly guy told me as he harnessed me up that in five minutes I'd be at the bottom, begging to have another go. I didn't believe a word he said. All of a sudden, there was just enough time to be clipped in, pulled back, and without so much of a 'ready?', we were off.

I screamed like a girl. I'm not even ashamed of it because I'm that much of a scaredy cat. After a few moments though, the wire levelled out, and I managed to have a little look around at the views, which were pretty impressive.

In a blink of an eye, it was all over and I was being unharnessed and on my way back to the group! Whilst I didn't quite have it in me to go and have another go, I spent the rest of the day feeling pretty smug with myself and conquering my big baby fears!

In all, our team raised over £1,200 for Macmillan, and the entire event over £14k, which is incredible. We more than doubled our target, and raised so much more than we expected.

So here's a really big THANK YOU to everyone of my friends, family and colleagues who donated to such an amazing cause.

(P.s. the just giving page is still open for a short while, so if you feel inspired enough to make a donation, here's the link)