Now that normal service has been resumed, I just thought I'd let you know that I haven't jumped since my 5,000+ feet on my back laugh-a-thon on Friday.

It rained all day on Saturday. There were winds of up to 30 knots on Sunday. Yesterday (Monday) was a perfect day and there were no blasted tandem bookings so the plane didn't go up! It's lovely sunshine today and the wind is too strong again. It's about 1:20pm as I write this and they'll ring me if the wind drops but it seems unlikely. Keith tells me that the winters do settle down and I shouldn't have a problem getting in the jumps I want to do - eventually!

We've got a new AFF student who started the course yesterday. He's called Tobi and he's from Germany. It was very interesting watching him do his ground training - it bought back a lot of memories. I don't think he believed me when I told him that the training harness in the hangar was really uncomfortable - he does now! He seems nice enough. It'll be good having another student around.

Some of you may remember that the last time I mentioned dates for the next leg of my trip I was due to leave from Auckland for LA on May 24th. Well, obviously I haven't. I've changed my ticket again and at the moment, I leave from Auckland on June 28th. The flight from New York to Heathrow is on 4th August. I think it's fair to say that neither of those dates are going to happen. I really don't know what my plans are apart from being determined to get my parachuting license. As I'm renting a unit now, my accommodation costs have gone way down, so I can afford to be here quite a while if need be. After everything I've been through in the last few weeks, there is no way I'm not going to stay long enough to get that license. However, it does mean that my budget for the last leg of my trip through the USA is going to be very limited, so I have no idea how much, if any, time I'm going to have there.

That's all for now. The weather doesn't look good for tomorrow I'm afraid. Rest assured that I'll email as soon as I've done my next jump.

Ian.