The summer school finished last Friday, and I travelled to Verbier where Paul is staying. I had booked a one-day introduction course to paragliding for Saturday. I was a bit scared about doing this, but it was lots of fun! We spent most of the day at “ground school” – learning to set up the glider and the harness, and how to take off (without actually taking off). In the afternoon I first did a short tandem flight – really great! And then it was time for my first solo flight… I was a bit nervous and I thought I’d be terrified through the whole flight but actually I didn’t get scared at all and was able to relax and enjoy the flight. It’s a great feeling to be flying on your own! It wasn’t very difficult as you are almost “remote controlled” – you have a radio and they tell you exactly what to do. The landing went fine, though I did fall over face forward – but the landing field has very tall grass and it made the landing very soft. Paul was able to take a great video of my flight, and because he had a radio on him as well, you can hear everything they were telling me…

The flight was only about 5 minutes, but it was fantastic and I am now very keen to take a course myself!! I didn’t expect I would enjoy it this much, I am usually quite a chicken and scared of everything… 😉

Paul is doing the last few flights he needs for his license at the moment, when he comes back we will leave for Vevey (near Montreux, at the lake of Geneva) until Wednesday. Paul has a lot of photos and videos of his 2 weeks of paragliding, so more soon!