My mate S. likes to offer to take me on a tandem ride every so often. While I like to think it’s because he’s a nice guy, I don’t think you can rule out the possibility that he just wants to watch me pee my pants in terror.

I can see my house from here

While I’m not so stupid as to go running off the side of a cliff, such as the two paragliders pictured to the right, I did agree on one sunny afternoon to go and check out the local paragliding club.

It was not easy.

It would have been easy if we’d all caught the van and ridden up to the top, but for some reason, everyone was all healthy and athletic. I staggered up the side of a huge mountain, panting in their wake, as they strode along and chatted in loud cheery voices.

Ninety minutes later, when I got up to the top of the mountain, they were all set up and ready to go. I made idle conversation, and S did his level best to answer my stupid questions with a straight face. (Have people ever barfed on you? Can pilots be on dramamine? How big of an accident do you have to be in before you permanently trash your wing? What is that beeping and chirping — is that some sort of MP3 player? Does your secondary parachute ever foul up your wing when it comes open?) (For the record, the answers were yes, no, very big, a variometer, and no)

Then I stood and watched them walk to the edge of the cliff, shake their wings a little to catch the wind, and walk off into space. While I stumbled back down the mountain, they sailed around in the air, spiraling up and down. Lazybutts.