Evening Flight

The Wind was still up, but everyone got out on the field to set up. The wise heads (Denis included) had a look at what some of the pacesetters were doing on their inflations. One of the first up, an Australian, was struggling to keep the balloon on deck as the wind shifted around. He had the opportunity to rip out the top at any stage, but he proceeded to load a photographer and take off. Well, not so much take off as motor across the ground at about twelve feet off the deck. He didn't seem in any hurry to climb, or the wind from above was keeping him down, but he then proceeded to go clanging a scaffolding that was strategically placed in his path. Which would have been okay if he'd either climbed out of it or just ripped out there and then. Instead the dangling crown line hooked around the scaffolding and made the decision for him - he was coming down, but not on the safe side of the scaffolding. Instead he was spun on to the road side of the scaffolding and had to put down amongst parked cars and traffic. The local paper (whose photographer was on board) put a spin on it, saying it was a measure of his skill that he managed to land between two cars without any further damage. However, in my book, a true measure of his skill at the very beginning, while the basket was pirroetting about on the ground, with the balloon gyrating above it, would have been for him to not bow to the pressure of taking the pretty young blonde photographer for her first flight, ripping out and saying "Sorry guys it's too windy to fly". That would have been brave - not foolhardy.

Watching that unfold left that dry taste in the mouth. And after watching that, the mouth of our own envelope that had been pulled from the bag in preparation for the possibility of flying was packed firmly back in. So here's an image of better times, from the Mass Ascension this morning

.