Abseiling the Blade

I kinda stumbled across this by accident. Mum found a small article in the local paper about an abseil being done for charity. They were after 75 volunteers so naturally I thought 'that sounds cool, bring it on'. I'd never heard of the blade building and up until I started telling people about it didn't think much of it until everyone said I was mental for thinking of doing it! I'd abseiled once before on a nice stable wooden flatform a few metres off the ground as a kid so thought it would be pretty easy to do again.

Until I saw the size of the blade! Actually seeing from afar was the worst bit, I was starting to tweak it as I saw it looming in the distance. Actually when you gety up close to it it's not that bad, there were a few of us there and they all seemed pretty chilled out, one girl had come from Cardiff just to do it. After going through the instructions and fitting up it was up in the elevator to the rather ominous 13th floor. I thought it was ironic when the lift said 'going down' after we got out, I fet like saying, 'me too, meet you down there!' Through the door into this huge empty room where we had to put on the CSI style blue shoe covers so we didn't mark the pretty new building. To get out we went through this door and had to walk round the perimeter towards the abseil flatfrom. The views across Reading were fantastic, I'm sure the view down was good too but you'll have to ask the others about that one! We were told there was only room for one person going done at a time, they'd rigged up this small wooden platform that you had to crawl into before the worst bit of the abseil, the over the edge bit. I was the second to go down and was juist pipped for the least graceful looking whilst decending as at least I was facing pretty much the right way throughout. I didn't swear, much, and remembered most of what they'd taught us; right hand back, left hand tucked in, keep your face fuzz out of the metal bit that sort of thing. I actually felt quite shite until half way down, I only really started to enjoy it once I knew I was right near the bottom. When I landed it felt so fantastic, pretty much the same feeling I had after my chopper flight. If you're in any doubt about trying it, go for it. There's something about fear that brings the best out in you. Once you've finished that fear turns to euphoria and it makes the whole thing so special. All this and Karting tomorrow, what a cool month :)

Rossifer x

p.s. A huge thanks to the chaps and chappettes of the Children with Leukaemia charity and Classic Tours for organising it, the abseiling crew for getting me down the Blade and my abseiling buddie Freya