When you are 81 with a dodgy knee, what mischief can you get up to on your Turkish holiday? Paragliding, of course.

Joan Points has now ticked the risky past-time off her ‘things to do before I die’ list, along with hot air ballooning.

Mrs Points, who lives in Hayes, was on holiday recently when the urge to soar like a bird overcame her.

“Every day these paragliders went flying overhead and I thought it must be lovely and peaceful up there, so I just went along one day and booked it,” she said.

“It was beautiful.

“The take-off was very frightening, but once we were off it was so wonderful.

“We were 1,700m up a mountain, and I’m not sure what was more scary, the coach ride up there or jumping off the edge of it.

Joan Points, 81, who went paragliding with her daughter Debbie Evans

“After we had taken off it was so quiet and peaceful and so clear – you could see everything for miles around.”

Now Mrs Points says all that is left on her ‘bucket list’, so called because you try to do them all before you ‘kick the bucket’, is travelling in a sea plane.

“We have looked into that. I would like to take off and land in the water, and I think you can do that in Scotland, so that is next on the list,” she said.

Mrs Points’ daughter, Debbie Evans, 55, of Clovelly Avenue, Ickenham, took to the skies as well.

The love of adrenaline sports must run in the family as Debbie has done a bungee jump and also paragliding before.

“I wasn’t thinking we would do anything like this on holiday, but it was mum’s idea so I said ‘if you want to do it then I will too’,” she said.

“They told her you can pay a deposit, think about it and then if you don’t want to do it you don’t have to pay the rest, but she just said ‘no, I’m definitely doing it. I’ll pay it all now’.

“They were really excellent with her on the take off and landing, especially as she even has a bad knee, but that wasn’t going to stop her.”