Another leap into the unknown, the firewalk came quickly after the fantastic day in Worcestershire with the Scooby and the Aston. After the cancellation of the London one due to illness, the Southampton one because of over subscription and the Bridgewater one as it was on the day of my grading, I would be travelling down to Gosport, raising money for the KIDS charity which looks after disabled children. The organiser of the walk i'd missed a few weeks back gave a very generous offer of returning all the money I'd raised. I was tempted to take it and use it on a future one but it wasn't their fault I couldn't make it so I certainly wasn't going to take any money back from them.
With my borrowed sat nav in the car, despite leaving it a bit late, I was ready for the off. My
beloved Mavis now had a voice, but then started to get a wee bit confused. The estimated arrival time fluctuated from 6:30pm, to 7:00pm and then 6:45pm and decided to recalculate the journey during a key lane change which resulted in a few choice words which would have made a Tourettes sufferer blush. Despite the sat nav falling off the windscreen a few times (resulting in a few more words of wisdom), mavis got me down there, not helped by the venue being ridiculously hard to find. It would have been easier trying to find a vegan in a butchers.
Arriving just after 7 I had time to get the formalities over with as well as having a first look at the fire I'd be walking over. For the first time at that point I had a moment of clarity of what I was about to do. I have nothing but a healthy fear of fire and was trying to work out how the hell I was going to make it across this without getting any blisters. A mate at work had done it before and sworn she'd received no blisters but I was still dubious. 7:30 and we we're all called into the 'Firewalkers only' room. I loved that bit, I've got this thing about wanting to peep behind those doors with 'private' on them so I felt I was getting one over on the owners of those doors! The size and decor of the room made it look as if we were about to hold a seance. It was just big enough to seat the 15 of us doing it and the very confident without being cocky guy who would be showing us how to do it. I, along with half the people there I think, expected some sort of special technique which had to be learnt in order to accomplish such a feat and, well there wasn't. We had the history of the event, examples around the world and the basics on what not to do. From what he was telling us it seemed nothing more than taking a deep breath and going for it, and that's, what it turned out, was exactly what we did. As a 'test of faith', he asked a couple of people to break an arrow using only their necks and a wall. The pointed bit was placed on the wall and the other end on their oesophagus (gap in the middle of your neck). Through nothing more than moving forward, the arrow broke and the willing volunteers had a cool souvenir. The final word was, if you can do that, have no worries about walking across fire.
After the pow wow, the 16 of us went outside. The small collection of people outside had grown to a crowd of cheering people surrounding the cordoned off hot coals. It was a great feeling that bit, I'd brought no one with me to watch but at that bit, everyone was getting the cheers. Through to where the coals were it was socks and shoes off, trouser legs up. Scott, the twice world record holder for firewalking and the guy who had taught us was to go first to ease any tension any doubters among us may have had. To be fair though, the coals in front of us looked only a fraction as daunting as the flaming logs I'd seen an hour earlier. The temperature of the coals was measured - 590°C, damn near 6 times the boiling point of water. I won't elaborate too much but we'd been told the popular scientific theories about how walking on such a temperature was possible. Scott took a breath, and over he went, little bit of smoke coming from each footstep. I couldn't help thinking of when I went skydiving. I remember the moment when people started leaving the plane we were in. Half of me was in turmoil but the other half kicked in and just excepted it as normal as everyone else was doing and it was the same here. "A perfectly sane man has just walked over fire. Fair enough, my turn!". A few of the others followed with no drama and it was my turn. So I took my breath, and off I went. I got to end, had my little cheer from the crowd and wiped my feet as we were all told to do, and joined the queue to have another go. We all went again, and again and when asked if anyone wanted one final go I was the last over. Nothing, no hot feet, blisters, not even the uncomfortable feeling of walking on an uneven surface. Picture walking barefoot outside, you always manage to find that one blasted stone, right on the heel. Nope, nothing. Weirdly enough the warm sensation came when we were stood on the grass at the end being bigged up by Scott and receiving our certificates. Afterwards I sat down to reply to all the texts but was scanning my feet for... something, ANYTHING! They were filthy but they were also flawless. It was about then it started kicking in what i'd done. I had trouble expressing the joy at having done something so fantastic to a rather sleepy sounding Dad on the home phone but I left it a few moments to let it all sink in. I'd walked over fire and felt thoroughly fantastic for having done so. As with moments such as the sky dive and find the bridge I loved the way it made me feel straight after. This bit will sound corny so apologies but it did feel like a semi phoenix rising from the flames moment, mainly because of it's timing and the fact this was my 3rd attempt at trying to do it. After feeling so rough the previous month I was getting back to how things used to be, health and postimism returning as one.
1. Dream helicopter ride - Best day ever
2. The leap of faith - Best single moment in my life
3. Rossifer's big apple
4. Find the bridge
5. Jet skiing
6. Back on track - Aston day
7 & 8 Getting stoned on the longest day
9. Fire walking
10. Climbing Snowdon
I was shocked but pleasantly surprised the day after when ranking this among the other entries in the book over the last couple of years. An epic evening the night before had reached no higher than 9th on my list, proving the effect the book has had on my life. This list was the 10 most enjoyable and didn't even include the more random entries such as the compost mile and the long walk home. Plenty of things coming up to look forward to, who knows how high up the list they'll feature. Now then, what's next...? ;)
Rossifer x
Big thanks to Scott and Mrs Scott from UK Firewalking and the peeps from KIDS.
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