It was amazing, unreal, over so fast and totally exhilarating. The instructors were excellent and made me feel so safe that I didn’t really feel scared. My tandem partner Mike was one of the co-owners of the Hinton Skydiving Centre and had done over 4,000 tandem jumps.

There was a moment of nerves as we climbed past 10,000 feet and a definite feeling that it was unnatural to allow myself to fall from the open door of the plane at 13,000 feet. Falling at around 120 miles per hour in freefall was incredibly loud and well, fast!

I spent the whole time with my mouth open in amazed silence. There was just time to look around and take it in before Mike showed me that his altitude watch was at 6,000 feet and he pulled the parachute chord. Then everything slowed down and became much quieter and I could hear Mike. He showed me how to move the parachute left and right and pointed out my home town and a few other landmarks. It felt like I wasn’t really there and before I knew it we were landing.

Would I do it again? Yes! And there are some photos below to prove I didn’t dream it.

Thanks for all the support and if you meant to sponsor me but were waiting till pay day, now’s the time to do it. The current total is £925 but it would be wonderful to make £1000 before I hand it all over to Kids Company.

You can also look into booking your own skydive here: www.skydive.co.uk

Hannah - Publicity Manager

When I first put my name forward to do a charity tandem skydive I didn’t really think it would actually happen. ‘Just put your name down while you think about it’ I said to myself. The next thing I knew I was an email in my inbox entitled ‘CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO COMPLETE A SKYDIVE OR PARACHUTE JUMP TO RAISE MONEY FOR KIDS COMPANY’. Oops.

Fear took over and I instantly decided I definitely wasn’t going to do it. I mentioned the idea to my mum. I could hear her turn white over the phone (unsurprising really as she has a fear of heights and of flying) and she told me not to be so silly. So that was it, I was too scared and my mum said I couldn’t do it. Except that when I vocalised these reasons to a friend his response ‘you’re a grown woman, you don’t need your mum’s permission’, I had to think again.

Despite a natural laziness where anything even slightly sporty is concerned I have had a hankering to jump out of a plane for a while now. In his younger days my father liked to go pot holing and hang gliding, perhaps a bit of him had rubbed off on me. So I made the decision to step a long way outside my comfort zone and well, here I am on the eve of the jump.

The other challenge I set myself was to give up alcohol from the 1st April, at least until I did the jump but with the target deadline of the end of the month. In the first week I felt amazing, the second very grumpy and now I’m pretty used to drinking lime and soda but definitely looking forward to a celebratory glass of wine or two. The main advantage has been that concentrating on not drinking has kept my mind off the fact that I will soon be falling thousands of feet through the air, putting all my faith in the bloke attached to me to get me to the ground safely.

Thanks to all the lovely people who have sponsored me already, and to my wonderful friends in the office who made these cakes and biscuits which we sold to raise extra funds. I have promised to get a video of the jump as proof in return (if possible). Think of me at 1pm tomorrow!

Hannah - Publicity Manager

The charity I am supporting is called Kids Company. They provide practical, emotional and educational support to vulnerable inner-city children and young people. Many of the 14,000 children they support have experienced severe and multiple trauma. Often these are ‘lone children’ living in chronic deprivation, with little or no support from the adults in their family. Visit their website to learn more at www.kidsco.org.uk.

If you would like to sponsor me please go to my Virgin Money Giving page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/HannahRobinson. Virgin Unite are kindly donating the cost of the tandem skydive so all proceeds go directly to Kids Company.