Up, up and away!

I completed another of my 40 before forty list last week and fulfilled a childhood dream in the process: I went up in a hot air balloon. Shane bought the balloon vouchers for me for Christmas last year, and after redeeming the vouchers with Wickers World we had repeatedly tried to book evening flights, but each time they were cancelled because of unsuitable conditions. It turns out that hot air balloons need surface wind speeds at or below 8mph to be able to safely take off and land! However, we finally managed to get the go ahead on an early (so early) morning flight from Alderford Lake, near Whitchurch. We arrived shortly before the Wickers World team but as soon as they got on site in their two Landrovers, they started ‘assembling’ the balloon. I’d never seen a balloon on the ground before so wasn’t sure what this would be like, and I’ll be honest, I was not expecting it to come flat packed on the back of a trailer: Wickers World team prep the balloon It didn’t take very long for…