WOW! That was too close this time.

Imagine sitting at your computer concentrating on one thing or another and you are made aware of an unusual noise.
Loud and sounding off quite frequently; with no rhythm, no beat, I looked out to see one of the Virgin balloons flying over the houses opposite.
Now this in itself isn't unusual, balloons of all shapes, sizes and colours come over in the summer; I get the impression  a club is relatively near by.
What was unusual was........the height!

 
 The burners were firing up repeatedly, but whatever the pilot did their altitude continued to drop. Faces of the passengers in the balloon became clear and I could see the colour of their jackets they were getting so close. They were enjoying the experience and were waving and smiling at those of us below now transfixed by this ground-approaching balloon.
Then the balloon hit a down-draft and sank lower.



 


It might look as though they are rising, but I promise you they weren't, it was the angle I ended up taking the photo.Hanging out of the window, I caught this final shot as they passed over next-door-but-one's roof.

If it had been a plane, the pilot would have been in breech of flying regs round here. In this case it appeared the passengers were having a lovely time, it was just people like me on the ground who had seen many pass by that I knew this flight was considerably lower than usual.
I still wonder whether they managed to regain full altitude by the time they had passed over our estate, and pondered as to where they intended landing.
Was that far away, or was it going to be in one of the fields about two mile further on, as the crow flies? The answer to that I will never know.