Vertigo

If I get tired or bored, both of which I seem to do very quickly these days, I tend to drop off. Drifting off isn't a problem until I get to the dropping off stage. At that point I get flashes of hanging on the end of a rope over the Grand Canyon, terrifying. I switch that one off only to find I'm about to parachute out of a plane or I'm flying off a parapet 30 floors up somewhere. It's got so bad recently that a picture on TV where the camera is looking down from a great height makes my stomach turn over. I had to leave the room when the shuttle was launching and pictures of the Earth appeared behind the shuttle. It's all totally irrational but highly disturbing.

The guys I drink with don't help matters. One flies helicopters and one's recently been up in a hot air balloon. They obviously want to talk about their experiences so by the time I get home, my imagination is working overtime with enough material for another couple of dropping off nightmares.

I'm not sure where this fear of heights came from because I spent most of my childhood up trees, lamp posts, ropes, scrawling about on the top of walls and shed roofs, laughing at my Father's total inability to cope with heights.

The weird thing is that I'm usually ok when I'm up in a plane or at the top of a high building. Raul was kind enough to take me up in a helicopter and I have to admit that I didn't enjoy it. I suppose I was expecting to be inside something a little more substantial and solid. He was kind enough to fit the doors into the sides before we took off but there was nowhere to look that didn't show the ground way down there. At least in a plane you can look at other people before you pluck up the courage to squint out of the window at cloud formations and the ground way down there. I think my main problem is an over active imagination. When that kicks in, logic flies out of the window if you'll pardon the expression.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with a couple who are taking on the might of the wind power companies. I think I'll offer them the use of my hacksaw.