Day 226

I have been up since 3.45 am!  To drive over an hour in order to watch (and photograph) about 20 hot air balloons take off from a field in Western Massachusetts. 

What induced someone to invent such a thing, to think that it was possible to inflate a huge balloon made of some light fabric, fill it with hot air, tie a basket under it in which to put human beings, and then float away, up into the sky to go with the breeze to wherever, and then let out the hot air slowly so as to descend in another spot? 

Amazing though, the designs and colours of these beautiful quiet craft sailing through the air.  Astounding how they get a flat mass of nylon fabric to billow out and bulge (with a giant fan), and then how they heat this air inside the balloon (with a propane burner) and how a whole crew has to work together to make it all happen, so that at the last moment the lucky passengers can climb into the basket and finally mount the air and drift away, multi-hued spheres like giant Chinese lanterns.

Anticipation.

Late night and I have been up for just over 20 hours, just back from a lovely dinner with friends, I am so tired that I feel quite ill.  So there is no drawing again, just this self-portrait from a bridge near the balloon field.