I have always been excited by the idea of hang gliding and microlight aircraft etc. The idea of being up there, free to the elements like the birds.

I have obviously gone on about it a lot as for my thirtieth birthday all my friends and family clubbed together to send me into the sky.

I have to be honest, once I was actually strapped in, I soon changed my mind and I would have happily just got up and left. But the instructor had other ideas.

Do you know the scariest thing about the microlight is that it doesn't have a gradual lift off like a plane... it has an almost 90 degree lift off. Very short run along the tar mac to get speed then WOOSH!!!!!! straight up.

Very very scary.