Perceived Risk

Thanks to Matt for the chance to Go Ape yesterday. This aerial assault course involves swinging around between the tops of the fir trees, and provided a much-needed adrenalin hit.

Of course, the actual danger level here is zero. The safety training lasted nearly an hour, and courses got progressively harder over the 2 hours in the trees. You know it can't be dangerous because there's no need to wear a helmet or hi-viz vest (either that or H&S haven't been to visit yet). At any one time you have at least one, and normally two, connections to the safety lines. But that doesn't stop the experience of standing on a small platform 60ft above the ground from inducing a very healthy amount of fear, and the risk certainly feels very real at that moment.

The last time I did anything like that was in 1991, at the French Infantry School in Berlin. Of course, on that course there were no safety lines, no sand traps, it was dark, and we were in full kit - ah, the good old days of no Health & Safety and a conscript army. Which will explain why my knees don't work properly any more and the British army was spared my presence in later years :)

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