I am now so old that I need a doctor to certify that I am adequately healthy enough to do something as trivial as a skydive.
This means I have to undertake a significant personal challenge that I am hoping you will sponsor me for. In the name of holy charity.
I have to go to a doctors.
This is not something I have managed to achieve in nearly a decade. Despite, for example, the acute burning pain I have had in my toe (variously self-diagnosed as gout and osteoarthritis). For the last three years. Or that time I awoke with a chest pain that meant it hurt to breathe or move. For a week.
So, yes, for the sake of the disadvantaged children supported by the charity, CHICKS, I am preparing to:
- Find a local doctor
- Register
- Go and visit them. In person
- Suffer the extreme humiliation of explaining that I'm so old, now that I've just turned 40, that I need them to check if I am alright to drop a little distance under no other force than that of ordinary, everyday gravity
- To a doctor who is probably half my age
- Who may well tell me then that I am, in fact, too decripit to submit myself to some gravity
- For Christ's sake
After which I'll be trying to relieve the stress with a gentle drop from 15,000 feet over the tranquil Devon countryside.
Your generous and supportive proceeds will of course be gratefully received by CHICKS, a charity designed to give kids with a hard ride (through poverty, abuse, or other difficult circumstances) some time away from their everyday life, in a supporting, challenging and fun environment. All of the children that CHICKS helps are disadvantaged and would not otherwise get the opportunity to benefit from some respite away from their circumstances or get to enjoy a ‘holiday’. Many are missing out on positive childhood experiences, have nothing to look forward to, and have little hope for the future.
So hand over your money.
Ian
