Self Portrait.

Not up to Lady Findhorn's standard, but o.k for a first attempt.

Bye-bye Bristol.
This is the balloon shop caught while waiting for the bus to take me to Temple Meads Station, one of Isambard's best, for my journey home to sunny Roslin. I had an emergency back-up blip of some relics of The Birthday, products of this very emporium that have escaped the great landfill in the sky. They used to hang upright from the floor but, now they are crumpled, deflating slowly, and when they eventually hit the ground they were tied to a picture hook from which they now hang forlornly downwards. Metaphors spring to mind, but they are all mildly obscene and so best left to the imagination.

As chance would have it, my copy of the "i" newspaper (I buy it for the sudokus when travelling) was running an article on helium filled balloons. I'm afraid that I'm with the environmentalists and other pressure groups all the way here; helium is a rare gas created by naturally occurring radio-active decay and, in the grand scheme of things, is very rare. It is also incredibly useful being an essential coolant in such machines as MEG scanners (magneto-encephalography, that's brain scanners to most of us). Prof. Wothers, of this year's RI children's lecture fame, is quoted as claiming that "our children will be saying, 'I can't believe they used such precious material to fill balloons!' "
Rant over.