1 day 4 32 on 5-6-7

This year I decided more to escape it than celebrate it and went to Milton Keynes. Not the obvious place to escape anything but actually a place of much fun. I went to AirKix where you launch yourself into a tunnel with air circulating at up to 170MPH and fly. I was a buzz. When you hold the right position you just stay suspended in the air. It you lengthen you move up the tunnel and arch you come back down. If you set your hands slightly as an angle you start spinning. The flights were only 1 minute each and I got only 2 but it was worth it for every second of this unique experience stretched out. I wish I could afford an hour in there. It is the equivalent of three free fall sky dives and you don’t have the unpleasant sensation of the ground rushing up to meet you. That is the part of the whole free fall experience which has so far not yet appealed.

Having free floated in a tunnel my friend and I rushed onto our next activity which was wake boarding. I can snowboard I thought I can probably wakeboard. They set us off first of all with a knee board – very different to a snowboard. You kneel down on a platform on the board you are then handed a piece of tow rope with handles and you wait. A clicking sound comes from above then you are yanked viciously from the platform, saturated with water as you scream and hauled off down the lake at high speed. As you approach the corner you aim for the between the buoys with dire warning of dislocated shoulders should you allow the rope to go slack. It does and if you had any sense you would let go there but pride has you holding onto until the snap comes and you are ripped from the board, dragged along the water a short way and mercilessly dumped. There follows a very long swim in a stinking lake then a long walk back to the starting platform again. I did actually get eventually around 3 corners but the fourth continued to elude me and when the wake board landed on my head after one hour and fifty I decided that was as close to my two hours as I was going to get. My friend had long since sensibly disappeared into the warm showers.

The egg on my head was complimented by the dullness after excessive wine consumption that evening whilst reliving the days fun and watching the flight DVD a couple of times. The ripping pain served to remind me of my birthday treat for several days and the cold which was clearing up before hand lingered on another week but it was worth it. I am 32 childless and making the most of it!