Abseiling ......at Last

Ok so the promised post has taken a lot longer than first suggested-- so sue me lol

The day of the abseil arrived and percularly I wasn't really nervous, well perhaps just a little, but I couldn't let the kids see that so Dad was very upbeat in the morning. We got our usual stuff out of the way saturday morning and got ready to set off. It had been arranged that I would pick my darling daughter (DD) up from her friends where she had spent the night. I telephoned her to let her know we were on our way so she would be ready and I wouldnt spend the usual 20 minutes sat outside while she actually got her stuff together. It was at this point that my DD decided to tell me she wasnt coming:-

Me: " what do you mean you arent coming?"

DD " I mean I dont want to come"

Me " Any reason or just adolescent mind changing taking place"

DD " I just dont want to come"

Me " But WHY NOT!!"

DD(Bursting into tears) " Cos if you want to throw yourself off a building and kill yourself thats up to you but i dont want to be there to watch"

Me " Dont be silly I am not going to kill myself, its perfectly safe" (thinks * I bloody hope so anyway*)

So a protracted conversation takes place and the result is DD doesnt come. It was at this pint I started to have mental conversations with myself, ( by that i mean in my head not insane ones) about how far 300 feet really is and that its not that far.........is it?

Arrived in Birmingham and seemed to be having trouble contacting the person who volunteered me for this. Hmmmm
Telephoned one of the other guys (Ginge) doing the abseil, who was also having trouble getting hold of the person who volunteered me, the same person who volunteered Ginge. Double Hmmmmm.

Got near the centre of Birmingham and the kids could see the building as we approached from quite a long way away.
The reason they could see the building from quite a long way away is becuase it was at least twice as big as the surrounding buildings.
Outwardly very calm, inside I am thinking BLOODY HELL!!! and some stronger more discriptive words.

Try again to get hold of the person who volunteered us, straight through to his answerphone
on his mobile over and over again WTF!!

Spoke to Ginge who had spoken to our volunteerer(? if it isnt a word it should be) who had told him he had to go somewhere to pick up a quad bike!!!!!!!! Cue me telephoning his answerphone to do an impression of a chicken. So here I was in Birmingham at a charity fundraising suicide attempt without the pleasure of the company of the person who volunteered me to do it in the first place. A different conversation started in my head:
Me " Would anybody notice if I just slipped away?"

Me " Dont be such a chicken"

Me " Chicken? Have you looked up and seen how big that Fking building is?"

Me" Its not THAT big"

Me " Not That big are you insane???? if it was any higher you wouldnt be able to see that top for clouds, now I know how Jack felt( of beanstalk fame)

Me" You can't chicken out now what would the kids think?"

Me " I could fake an injury"

Me "What straining a muscle looking up? Anyway you're knackered now"

Me "Why"

Me " heres Ginge"

Me" Oh @*&^%$£@"

So I have a conversation with Ginge and we are both being brave bloke'ish pretending neither of us are bothered and calling our volunteerer ( i thought the word should be used more) every name we can think of.

3:15 arrives ( our appointed time) and they call our names well mine and somone called Paul.
It turns out that Ginges name is really Paul, who'd have guessed, I have only known him a few years lol

We book in and are given a form to sign, an indemnity form, which says and I am Paraphrasing here: If you slip and plummet to your death its not our fault cos you were stupid enough to let someone else volunteer you, so no money for you( the last bit was said in the voice of the soup nazi from Seinfeld)

We were then told there was a bit of a delay and we would have to wait about 45 minutes!! Oh good that will give me more time to contemplate my death. ( I know its a bit melodramatic but honestly you should see the building)

It ended up being an hour and three quarters wait, then we had to go and get the gear on which involved being fastened into a harness which was quite snug especially around the groinal region.
There were 2 people doing this a young blonde lady and an aging hippy with a ponytail and a very bushy beard. Guess which one I got, yep it really wasnt my day.
It seems that the young lady was there to do the womens harnesses only. I thought about voicing my concerns regarding sex equality and that the young lady looked eminently qualified to ajust my harness then thought better of it as the harness was the thing keeping me attached to the rope.

So harness on, climbers helmet on, what looked suspiciously like gardeners gloves on and into the lift to the top of the building.
A thought occured to me on the way up about the helmet, velocity, impact speed, the human skull and egg shells but I tried to put it out of my head, it wasnt hard as there seemed to be someone in there running round screaming anyway.

Out of the lift we then had to go up a couple of flights of stairs, through the boiler room for the building and onto the roof.

If I thought it looked high looking up at it from the ground it was even higher from the top looking down,although I didnt look over the edge as I am not good with heights ( I know I know) ,the person screaming in my head seemed to get a bit louder.

There was a group of 6 of us on the roof all full of nervous laughter, trying not to look like we were really shitting ourselves.
The first 2 were called to the edge and discovered that they first had to pul up the safety rope, this the man explained was to ensure that if anything happened to the rope you were abseiling down then he could stop you at any time with 2 fingers by applying pressure to the rope running through the metal loop. I looked round at the tohers and they looked like they believed what this guy was saying as much as I did i.e not at all!!

I watched the others go over and then it was mine and Ginge's turn, first pull the rope up, my forearms were burning from the excertion, as pulling up 300 ft of rope isnt something I do every day.

The guy at the top of my rope fastens me in checks my harness, then he says "ok just swing your right leg out over the edge, I do this and am now sat astride the ridge on top of the roof...... I get a glimpse of what I have been trying to avoid......the drop HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I thought it was high before believe me it was nothing compared with the view I have now,my stomach is churning and the person in my head seems to have reached a crecendo.

He then says lean forward bearing your weight on your hands and swing your other leg over, I do this and am now hanging over the edge of the buildingwith my legs dangling, now he says I have lean backwards, well I am sorry but this goes against all human self preservation and for a few seconds I am frozen, then, after a short argument with myself in my head, I start to lean back and a photographer comes to the edge, I smile, he takes a photo, the smile disappears. The guy at the top tell me that it doesnt matter how scared a person is they always manage a smile for the camera.

I start to lower myself down and realise they have neglected to tell us one thing: that when your whole body weight is suspended by a harness all the weight is applied to the top of the harness applying pressure to your chest and solar plexus making it quite difficult to breath.

So here I am suspended in the air by a rope ( safety rope controlled by someone I met 5 minutes before), finding it difficult to breath and trying desperately not to look down.
I decide that the best way to deal with this is to descend as quickly as possible to get it over with. I start to go down quicker and quicker, then I can smell burning and quickly realise that its the gloves as my hands are getting quite warm, I stop to let the gloves and my hands, recover.

Whilst paused there I thought to myself, I must be a fair way down now, can't be that far left to go and steal a glance downwards. BIG Mistake, far from being near the bottom, I find I am less than a third of the way down with a long way to go. I set off again and gain speed, then I hear a voice saying " Ok Mate slow down a bit now nearly there" I look round and realise that I am about 30 feet from the ground.

I slowly lower myself feet on the ground, a little unsteady and quite a bit lightheaded from the lack of proper breathing. Stand for a minute, then remember Ginge, look round and he is nowhere to be seen, I ask the man taking the harness off where he is and he points up, Ginge is about a third of the way down, decending slowly but steadily.I am then accosted by a Local Radio DJ who tells me that Ginge is descending at a normal speed and that it looked like someone had cut my rope I came down that fast ( I wondered if this was the case what happened to the guy in control of the safety rope??) and that I had the fastest decend time of the day.
He asked how much I had raised which was just over £600 ( thanks to those who sent money via paypal) and then he asked would I do it again? I of course lied and said of course I would, then walked over to the wife and kids as cooly as I could to the hero's welcome I thoroughly deserved ;0)

If only they knew
see here for pics as I cant get them to upload on here