The weather is awful (and is likely to be so for several days yet) so I've taken the time to make some changes to my round the world ticket again. As you've probably guessed by now, the rest of my trip is more or less off and my remaining time away is going to be pretty much devoted to skydiving. I've been giving it all a lot of thought over the last few weeks. Having pushed myself through that awful couple of weeks where I was on the verge of feeling that I'd have to give it up I've decided that there is now no way that I'm giving up and that I want skydiving to be a part of my life. Thank you to everyone who gave me their support and good wishes. I don't care how long it takes, or how hard it is to pass the remaining three stages of the AFF. I'm going to do it and I'm going to get my license. I'm now planning to stay long enough to get my B license. Some places won't let you jump on an A license (NZONE in Queenstown being one example). A B license is 50 jumps and some extra training. Because of the extra jumps I've been doing to get my confidence back, I've now got 18 jumps logged.

The upshot of this is that I've been into the Air NZ office today and looked at the options on my ticket. As it now stands, I leave NZ from Auckland on August 28th to go to Los Angeles. Then I fly out from New York back to London on 18th September. I was just going to have a couple of weeks in the States but that made my flight from JFK September 11th and I know it seems silly but I felt very uncomfortable flying on that date. It turns out however that if I want to I can re-route and fly straight back to London from NZ. It's all going to depend on how the money is going to be honest. There is a place near LA called Perris Valley Skydive which is a world famous DZ with a huge range of facilities. It's also the home of a group called Team Extreme who made a skydiving DVD that I have a copy of. If I can I'd really like to jump there! Before I leave NZ I'd really, really love to go back to Queenstown and apart from being able to catch up with Lorraine and Siobhan - which is reason enough to go of course, I'd like to jump at NZONE at the DZ where I did my tandem. I think that would really be a great way to round all this off - to have done a tandem there and then go back a few months later with a B license and my own rig. Ah, that brings me on to my next bit of news...

I've bought my own rig! Well, I've ordered it - it'll take a while to arrive. I waited until I'd done more than one solo jump to make sure I really wanted to do this. It's not a spur of the moment decision and I've given it a lot of thought over several weeks and talked to the guys at the DZ about it. It's not cheap! I'm buying everything new as I don't feel comfortable going for a second hand rig, and anyway buying new means I can get the colours I want! I've got to look cool! In NZ you are allowed to jump your own rig as soon as you've passed the AFF course which is why I'm ordering it all now so that when I finally finish the course I shouldn't have to wait too long to jump my own gear.

The canopy is being made in NZ by a company called Icarus (www.nzaerosports.com) . It's a Safire canopy and will be black with two red stripes, one on each side; the slider will be red. Icarus canopies are known the world over. It's slightly eliptical and is going to be 170 sq ft which is considerably smaller than my student canopy which is a square 330 sq ft so it should feel a lot faster and be more manouverable. Can't wait to try it out.

The container (the harness and the pack that the parachutes are packed in that sits on your back) is coming from Germany and is a Performance Variables Omega Sport. (www.myskyshop.com) . It's nearly all red with a couple of black panels on the back and the stitching and tapes will be white. Also from the same company is my reserve chute (150 sq ft - and I don't care what colour that is as long as it's there and it works - it's white); a Pro Dytter Audible Altimeter that sits in my helmet by my ear that will allow me to have three different heights set (break off, deploy and last chance); a Barigo altimeter with wrist strap that I can wear either on the back of my hand or on my wrist and a Cypres II Expert 1 pin Automatic Activation Device - that's the thing that will fling out the reserve at around 1000ft if for some reason I haven't done it myself.

Keith at the DZ makes helmets and I'm having one of his - black. My jumpsuit is being made by a local company who also make the NZONE staff jumpsuits. Mine will be black with a red stripe up the sides of the legs and arms with white piping on the edges of the stripes. Keith's given me a pair of goggles!

Delivery times are a little bit vague. I can have the helmet as soon as I'm cleared off radio (it's a better all round fit over my ears and might make it difficult to hear any instructions). The jump suit should be ready in four weeks. The stuff from Germany should be here in five weeks but Keith has asked them to let him know asap if that is not going to happen. Icarus are going to try to get the canopy out in three weeks and Keith has said that he'll put it in the container that Lorraine was jumping when she was here so that I can jump it as soon as I can without having to wait another couple of weeks for the container from Germany. I can't tell you how excited I am to have my own rig on order. The thought that hopefully in a few weeks time I'll go to deploy, count one thousand, two thousand, three thousand and look up and see my very own Icaus Safire 170, in my colours, oppening above me (I hope) is just out of this world.

I really want skydiving to stay part of my life. It'd be awful to have gone through everything that I have and then never do it again. If I leave buying my own rig until I'm back in the UK I don't honestly think I'll ever get round to doing it, and then it's unlikely that I might get round to going and hiring a rig at a DZ.

I'm practically jumping up and down with excitement and that's probably the only jumps I'll get at the moment as the weather has turned bad again (I've been told that June is the worst month here).

The other dates I wanted to mention for those of you in the UK are the latest Celloman gigs (Full details at www.celloman.co.uk. Go see them people! Go and say hello for me! I've got my Celloman CDs with me and they've been fantastic to listen to, particularly through the last few week's traumas when I needed to feel calm and relaxed and centred and inspired to follow my dreams. However down I've been, listening to such inspirational music has lifted my spirits everytime.

Fri 25th June - Glastonbury Festival. Croissant Nuef Tent. 9.30pm.

Sun 27th June - The Royal Theatre, Northampton. 7.30pm. www.northamptontheatres.com

Sat 10th July - FSOE Respect Festival, Exeter. www.exeter-respect.org

Sun 11th July - Rhythms of the World Festival. Hitchin.www.rhythmsoftheworld.com

Sun 25th July - Trowbridge Village Pump Festival. 1pm. www.trowbridgefestival.co.uk

Bye for now,
Ian.