As an active kind of company we try and get involved in all kinds of things and will never turn up our nose at doing something a little out of the ordinary…. so when long time pal of the HOFNAR experience Laurence Wigfield asked us to help crew his hot air balloon – we leapt at the chance!

Laurence was actually on our very first trip to Morzine back in 2003 and this weekend saw us joined by Dickie the Dutchman, Mr Pine and The Schlong… all HOFNAR regulars and long time friends….

You can actually go hot air ballooning as part of our Bristol Weekender trips but this was purely a jolly and was part of the Longleat Sky Safari which meant we also got to see the animals!

There is a competition where the balloons have to follow the first balloon to take off and drop a marker as close as possible to an ‘X’ they lay out in a field – Laurence asked me to join him and The Dutchman in the basket. It was a beautiful morning, casting a balloon-shaped shadow everywhere we went… ducking down low, climbing up high, sneaking in behind the trees to try and find the right trajectory… We were the closest! But still didn’t get close enough to win a prize 🙁

As we bounced into a stubble field, we giggled like children as Dickie was bundled into the bottom of the basket.

The evening saw us ‘night glowing’ – waiting until dark and then in formation and in time to music lighting the burners to glow like Chinese lanterns….

An unusual, unexpected weekend playing with hot air balloons – thank you Mr Wigfield, glorious!

Get it hot, Get it up!