Up, up and away, etc

I nipped out into the back garden before I cooked supper tonight and snapped away as usual. The cows were sitting on the slope of the hillside opposite but were shrouded by trees and the cloudy light. Leaves, flowers, Bomble, ripening plums, St John's Wort flowers and fruits and even a shot of Helena, catching her rather like a rabbit in the headlights. She didn't like the picture, understandably.

I cooked a soup from all the spare vegetables which had escaped earlier use, and left it to simmer while I went to download the pictures.

Just as the transfer finished, Helena shouted out from the front garden for me to come as she could see an hot air balloon. I nipped downstairs and out to the street, and the balloon was approaching from the west over the gap in the Cotswold hills in which Stroud and its valleys lie.

As it was in the sky, with with the setting sun behind it and some clouds, didn't make me hopeful of a good shot. But it came straight towards us, moving quite swiftly, even passing virtually overhead. We see quite a few balloons over the course of the year , sometimes even passing directly behind the house up the valley where I was earlier photographing the cows.

Finally I got a shot with the illumination from the gas burners, warming up the heart of the balloon. Our next door neighbour, another Steve, (besides our other neighbour who is also called Steve) came out to see it pass and Helena told him that she has always wanted to go for a flight in a balloon. I will have to try and save some pennies and see if we can manage that for her.

The writing on the balloon, other than its Registration number, says 'Sewn and flown by the staff of Cameron Balloons', so maybe I should give them a call, and offer them a series of pictures in return for a flight?

I blipped this shot of a pair of balloons early one morning from the back garden as my fourth blip.