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| August 11-13th - Balloon Festival |
| The Bristol Balloon Festival was a bust this year. The rain held off but the wind didn't. We got home from Scotland on Thursday night late enough in the evening so as to miss the opening festivities. So, Friday morning we got up real early and walked over to catch the "6:30 mass take-off". Even as we got to the harbor we knew that something was amiss. At 6:10 there were balloons in the air. |
| Not only were they early, they were heading south, away from us. And, the wind was starting to kick up. As we got closer, our worst fears were realized - all but one of the balloons had launched and we never got closer than we were at the harbor edge. |
| The one balloon that was left behind was being taken down. We reread the schedule and found that we had misread and the Mass Launch was set for 6:00AM. Not only that, the balloons that launched were being called down because the wind was increasing, making it unsafe. As it turned out, this was the only launch window for the entire weekend. The weather was windy and cool, overcast but pleasant. They couldn't even launch at night. Saturday, Nancy was asked to lecture at one of the knitting groups, a new one for her. I walked over to the Balloon Festival grounds knowing that nothing balloon related was happening. Aston Court had been turned in to a carnival. Most of the vendors, including the "French Market" that were at the Harbor Festival, showed up again for the Balloon Festival. And, a lot of additional carnival rides had been added - even helicopter rides over the city |
| Sunday morning was the last chance for a balloon launch, so I got up at 5:30 to walk over to Ashton Court for a 6:00 launch. Nancy took one look at the clock and picked "Plan B" - rolled over and went back to sleep. Even as I walked over to the launch area, I knew that the wind was higher than the balloons would allow. But, hope springs eternal. I was not the only optimist. A couple of hundred other people and most of the balloonists showed up. It was a pleasant morning - except for the strong breeze. |
| One of the balloon manufactures attempted to at least inflate his balloon. He rolled it out and got everything ready, but even with other balloon crews willing to help, just couldn't get himself to take the risk. That was the end of this year's Balloon Festival. September 2 & 3rd will be the big Kite Festival at this same venue - probably be no wind. We'll see. I have to own up to the fact that this year's garden is a little disappointing. Shortly after our arrival in the spring, I bought some sweet pea flower seeds. I have never had any real good luck with sweet peas, but I thought in this climate they might be the ideal flower to grow. The balcony of our flat had a collection of flowerpots of various sizes. The biggest two were a healthy 14 inches, terracotta. One of the pots was filled with some sort of planting mix, but I was pretty sure that whatever soil was in there was tired. The balcony has a northeast exposure and only gets the early morning sunlight. So, the venture was a little "iffy" from the very beginning. I went down to the "DIY" (do it yourself) store and bought some fertilizer, a liquid version of "Miracle Gro". I removed all the soil from the pot and mixed it with a generous portion of the fertilizer (not easy to do in a small apartment). And planted all the seeds from the packet. When Ferry-Morris still had a plant in Mountain View, they were very proud of the fact that some flower seeds were more valuable than gold on a weight basis. These seeds weren't worth gold but a bowl of pea soup would cost a couple of hundred pound Sterling (GBP.) Of the forty seeds, only about sixteen germinated. The growth was very slow and the tallest the vines ever got was maybe thirty inches. I did get some weeds in the pot and even they weren't very vigorous, but they were greener than the sweet peas so I left them. Then disaster struck. Up here on the balcony the snails found my pot one night and ate all my greenery down to the nub. The green weeds - they didn't even touch the sweet peas. By the end of the season, I had only gotten one sweet pea blossom, the weeds did grow back but never got very tall |
| When we hosted foreign exchange students, we went to lots of orientation programs at which it was explained that an extended exchange had three parts: The "holiday", the part where everything was new, exciting and challenging; the "just living" part, where you had pretty much accepted your new surroundings and were living in a new environment; and the "going home", the part where you realize that the experience will soon be over and you'll be heading home. The "going home" is the most complex emotionally. We are in that period now. There is a certain amount of guilt about wanting to go home because it is disloyal to your new world. There is a certain amount of dread about going home because this experience has been fun and you don't want it to end. There is panic because there is a list of things that you wanted to accomplish and the list hasn't been nearly completed. And finally there is reluctance to do new things and meet new people because this will only add to the things that you will have to leave behind. The weather hasn't been helping. We definitely can feel fall approaching. The nights are getting colder and the days, lately, have been a little dreary. The smell of blackberries is in the air. I always hated the smell of blackberries, when I was a kid, because it signaled the end of summer and the return to order and discipline of school. Oh well, for there to have been a beginning, there must be an end. And, there are still lots of things to do and see before we fly home Sept. |
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