Wing and a prayer

Early yesterday morning while Kate and Wills legal team were knocking about the finer details of a pre nuptial agreement of just who will get custody of the swans should it all go Pete Tong in the coming years we were braving the incredibly straight roller coaster roads of the fens on our way to Chatteris airfield near March. The glossy website didn’t really prepare you for the retro style cafe facilities, but I am sure that was due to the fact that they had spent all their money on the bunting and the aircraft!  

Despite it being a warm dry day some slightly hazy cloud kept everyone out of the skies until about 12.30 and glued to the telly looking for Wills fashionable bald spot and Martin Fidler the bearded butcher of Kate Middleton’s home villages at the abbey. After a brief bacon roll and some tea the call went up to start the engines and the first troop of chute-ist’s jumped on board the De Havilland twin otter. Despite its less than glamorous exterior (the plane and the club) it did seem well run and there were virtually no fatalities on the day although it was really hard to tell because like the Grand National, upon impact the bodies were covered over with a large sheet almost immediately. One little gem of information we did pick though was apart from death, brain damage and broken limbs all the instructors’ worst personal nightmares were tandem jumpers vomit. If you are falling really fast and you are sick apparently it will almost always make hasty tracks directly into the instructors face. Nice! Kirsty was one of the last two to jump and leapt from the twin ottered tub at about 4.30 and drifted down to terra firma with all her ankles intact and a sizable cheque for Athony Nolans trust grasped in a shaky hand.