Flying high

Although I didn't take this image, it really had to be included in my journal, because today I fulfilled a lifelong ambition to ride in a hot air balloon. Pete and I had been bought tickets last Christmas by our family, but because the summer was so busy we hadn't got around to booking our flight. We originally tried for a date at the beginning of October, but the winds were too strong. I had thought today's flight might also be cancelled, but the wind dropped and we found out at 11.30 pm last night that it was going ahead.

We flew from Grimsthorpe Castle, just west of Bourne. Having arrived at 1.45, pm it took over an hour to get the balloon unpacked, assembled and inflated, a process that involved lots of teamwork by all who were flying. We finally got into the air just after 3 pm, the take-off being almost imperceptible. It was such a thrill to be floating gently in the sky but feeling perfectly still, no breeze and no noise until the burners were ignited. Our pilot, Rebecca, was amazing and answered all our questions very clearly. The only slight disappointment was that the sky didn't clear as predicted, and it was stubbornly grey and hazy for the whole flight, which made photography difficult. However, I enjoyed spotting many sites that I'd walked over during my last few years of botanical recording in Lincolnshire. 

We were due to be airborne for about an hour, but Rebecca had some difficulty finding a suitable place to land, so we ended up with an extra twenty minutes of low level flying, which in some ways was the most exciting. At some points we were almost brushing the trees and hopping over power lines, and we frightened a surprising amount of wildlife including several pheasants, a roe deer and a hare. The barn owl hunting along a hedge was completely unperturbed.

She eventually found a stubble field, and landed perfectly with scarcely a bump. By this time the light was fading fast, and  the landrover and trailer had some trouble finding us. Rebecca had to light the burner to act as a beacon (see extra). Packing up the balloon proved even harder work that setting it up, and one lady managed to lose her mobile phone in its folds while rolling on it to get the air out, so we all spent quite some time searching for it, to no avail. By the time everything was packed up it was completely dark. We then had to get on the trailer to be ferried across the fields to the waiting minibus, a somewhat nerve-wracking experience, with me hanging onto the edge of the balloon basket. 

Back at Grimsthorpe Castle we enoyed a small goblet of champagne before heading back home. Too tired to cook, we took Alex and Ben out for a very nice pub meal, the perfect end to a perfect day.