Well, as the subject says really. I was booked for two jumps today, one at 11am and one at 1pm. There was lots of low cloud first thing so that one was off and at 12:30 it was still bad and starting to rain. So there aren't any jumps today. They have some tandems booked for 9am tomorrow (Monday) so hopefully I'll get to go up then.

I'd just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who's sent me emails or txts or online messages wishing me luck and telling me that they are enjoying reading about the skydiving.

It's great to hear from you guys. Writing the emails is the equivalent for me of keeping a diary of what I'm doing here. When I start typing them I feel like I'm re-living the experience so that's why they get a bit long. Travelling on my own as I am, I need to feel like I'm sharing this amazing experience with my friends and getting your feedback makes it even better.

Thank you Candy for the wonderful phrase "Pre Jump Jitters". Candy has done a tandem jump herself. I get PJJ really, really badly! They seem to kick in about an hour or so before I get picked up to go to the Drop Zone. Once I get there they go for a while. Most of the time I'm really pumped up about what I'm going to be doing on the next jump.

PJJ kicks in extremely badly as the plane moves into position for us to board outside the hangar. I get to the point where I'm on the verge of saying I'm not going to go. I don't really know why it gets so bad. I love the skydiving, even more so now that I'm starting to feel that I'm actually in control of what I'm doing up there (erm, most of the time). I love being under canopy as well (which is a bonus I wasn't expecting) and flying the chute down and landing where I'm aiming for (I can see the attraction of getting into target jumping where the aim is to land as close to the centre of a target on the PLA as possible). So why I get so terrified is something I still haven't sorted out.

The only thing that might stop me skydiving is this fear. A couple of days ago it was getting really bad. I mentioned the other day that Lorraine had noticed how quiet I get just before getting on the plane. She did say the other day that I look much better when I'm actually at the door than I do on the flight up. It's much better jumping with one Jump Master. Maybe it's because Damon is on my right, inside the plane, so I don't have to look outside to someone hanging on to the edge of the door to do an OK check. As I said, the other day it was very, very bad. I couldn't think about anything else the night before and all the next morning, apart from how scary it is. But after doing my first jump with one Jump Master it's got a lot better in that it only gets really bad out at the Drop Zone waiting to get on the plane.

I'm not going to put any pressure on myself about all this. If I get to a point where the fear is too much for me I'm going to stop. I won't feel like a failure if that happens. Even if I stopped now I've done so much more than I ever thought myself capable of and that feeling of achievement will never leave me. I was reading one of the skydiving magazines they have in the shop at the Drop Zone. There was an article where readers had been asked to write in with what they hated most about the sport. Two letters really struck a chord with me:

"As a 53 year old new skydiver with only 3 jumps under my belt so far, the fact that I'm already completely addicted and I can tell this is going to take over my life"

"The fear. I put up with it because of how amazing the sport is, but every time it's a battle".

I understand exactly how those two guys feel!

Well, I'm really fed up that the weather is bad. So is Lorraine. I rang her earlier on. She was due to come out this afternoon to do her final AFF stage: Stage Nine which is the hop-and-pop from 4,500 feet. So she can't get to do that either. We might meet up later on. It's great that there is someone here who has only recently been going through what I'm doing.

I thought I'd better let you know that I didn't jump today as I've been mailing every day and thought you might worry if you don't get a mail when I've said I'll be jumping - particularly after yesterday's little problem getting the chute open. Actually, what happened hasn't put me off at all. That's not adding to the fear in any way. I've worked out why it happened and I know what to do if I get a similar problem in the future, so it was useful to have gone through that.

The forecast isn't good for tomorrow, but then it was supposed to be OK today so who knows.

Bye, Ian.