Friday 10 April 2009

Go Ape


This is K in her new office. Parents hope their children will go up in the world, but this isn't quite what we imagined.

Apart from scrambling about in tree tops, instructors at Go Ape have to pull themselves up the several zip wires to open the course each day, rain or shine. She's beginning to pack some serious muscles, and my days of bettering her at arm wrestling may be numbered.

When I was a kid we lived in a valley in the Chilterns, with a garden that fell steeply down from the beech woods of the Duke of Buckingham's estate. My father rigged up a steel zip wire from some left over rigging. We had to climb up a ladder, grasp a metal bar slung from a pulley, and launch ourselves off. It was fantastic fun - provided you remembered to lift yourself above the nettle patch halfway down, and let go before you slammed into the conker tree at the bottom. Health and Safety wouldn't have approved (but then they wouldn't have approved of much of what we got up to, like being towed up the lane on a sledge behind the Landrover when it snowed).

These zip wires are a different matter, and heights cause bits of my anatomy to try to retract in a manner they're not designed to, so I am plucking up courage before I have a go...

21 comments:

  1. I'm impressed that she has a job in which she will not be constrained by a glass ceiling. And can rise effortlessly above her peers.

    It looks tempting in a 'gosh, why don't you go first' type of way.

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  2. OHMYGAWD!!!!

    that's your daughter up there?


    my KNEES are shaking now and i'm sitting down!!!! (i love mmedeF's comments!) xoxoxo

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  3. I've always fancied a roomy office to myself... but that takes the biscuit...

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  4. Wow! Lucky K!
    Please tell her I've not abandoned house concert just had a few logistical problems and will be in touch soon x

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  5. Looks a great job....from down here

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  6. Now that looks like loadsa fun! And I see there is a site in Moors Valley :) Might be an ideal birthday gift for N2S!

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  7. Yep, it does look like a lot of fun - and a great bit of thinking by whoever set this up. When it snows here people regularly get dragged behind cars on skis - or indeed on the soles of their boots - ain't no health and safety gonna put a stop to that!

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  8. Oh...I'm afraid of heights like that...

    I'm a chicken..I'd have to be tricked into doing it!

    ;-)

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  9. I think my daughters would absolutely love it! Not sure I would want a go - I don't mind the ones nearer the ground but that does look a little bit high ...

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  10. My 14 year old would give that a go, of course someone would have stay on the ground to photograph the evnt and thats where I would come in real handy!!

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  11. That looks terrific, I like an office with a view - is the chair comfy?

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  12. A free spirit.. not an office block in sight.

    Good for her.

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  13. WOW!! But NOT for me! Look forward to seeing the pics when YOU have a go though....

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  14. Oh my Harry loves Go Ape. It would be his idea of paradise a job like that.

    When we were in Ningaloo I found him standing in front of a community noticeboard looking at a job advertisement "whale shark swimmer" - his eyes were huge and he said "when I'm 18 I'm coming to do that." But I rather think a Go Ape job might appeal just as much.

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  15. OMG!!!
    TOO HIGH!
    What courage.
    I feel privileged to visit your worlds (inner & outer).
    Thank you & warm aloha

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  16. Oh, I would try it and then be giddy the rest of the day!

    Pearl

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  17. Go Ape's really good fun. Always staffed by utter nutters though.

    Does your lass fit in well there?

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  18. "bits of my anatomy to try to retract in a manner they're not designed to"

    Heh!

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  19. OK, come clean - she IS the slow loris I saw on holiday, isn't she?

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  20. Madame DeF - Absolutely. Lots of blue sky thinking and so on. I'm decidedly mannered when it comes to who goes first.

    Savvanah - It is. I don't know where she gets it from.

    Steve - It's a goody. Shame about the lifts.

    Helen - I will...Sounds fun!

    NB - My thoughts entirely.

    DJK - UIt';s be a great present...although I'd settle for a cake.

    Gadjo - That sounds hard core. And there's me thinking we'd invented uphill sledging.

    Sweet Cheeks - When it's my turn, have a feeling I'm going to wind up clinging to a tree trunk with my eyes closed.

    Completely - They'd love it. Your local one has big Tarzan swings, but shorter zip wires, apparently.

    Amanda - Coming from the home of extreme leisure, she'd probably find it a bit tame.

    Lulu - Not exactly. But there's something quite fetching about all the straps and buckles...

    Jimmy - Just so. You can almost see Shap on a good day...

    Justme - No promises; I'm not a pretty sight at the best of times and a look of sheer terror might not help.

    RB - It sounds like his kind of thing. (I'm jealous; I want to be able to say, "When I was in Ningaloo..." too).

    Cloudia - Thank you - but the privilege is all ours.

    Pearl - Somehow I've no doubt you try it...then want to go round again!

    Jules - Funny you should say that. I wondered why they took her...

    Chimesey - Too much information, I guess.

    Lucy - I hadn't spotted the connection, but now you come to mention it..

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  21. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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