Last Monday was my death-defying segway ride so this Monday is...fire-eating.

I have long wanted to fire-eat but believed it was a skill taught from birth by goblins and not really something you could just do a little evening class in.

I was wrong. Not only can you do it in a 2-hour evening class you can even buy a groupon to do so!

I think it took me approximately 5 second from seeing the title of the email with the offer before I had bought my voucher and now the day of my potentially setting myself on fire had arrived.

I arrived at The Fire School late, and terrifed that I had missed the important safety imformation. So I hurriedly joined a circle of other students and watched as a man rubbed fire on his hands. I quickly debated running for the exit but reasoned with myself that surely he was the teacher and it would be a long time before I would work up to that.

No such luck. He was a student and the teacher immediately turned to me and said "Are you Jean? Good, I'm going to rub some fire on your hands now so you get used to it".

It all went downhill, or uphill, from there.

Before I knew it I was rubbing my own hands with fire then rubbing sticks of fire up and down my fore-arms before working up to licking the fire and then putting it out with my mouth.

It was a genuinely strange experience to not only put myself so close to fire but to touch myself with it. Strange, terrifying and exhilarating.

Each time the level stepped up a new level of fear came and I think we all wanted to shout "I'll settle for the fire on my hands thanks!"

But we all stayed and did it all. It was so much fun and I felt such a sense of achievement as I did it.

I may never do it again, that seems to be tempting fate too much, but I really think you should do it.