A lot of hot air Metz

Things seemed to be going exactly according to plan as far as we could tell, the little hand was on seven and for a time we had been quite oblivious to that fact, eyes wide shut under the comfort of the doona, but then the roar of the montgolfiere interrupted our repose.

The hot air balloon festival is held every two years, although this year seems to be some sort of a minor fill-in with just thirty or so roaring into life a few metres from our berth each morning and evening before drifting silently away over the distant hills. Given the proximity, and despite the rather uncivilised time, it seemed to us that we would be in some way remiss not to drag on some more suitable attire and attend the proceedings for a bit as one by one the crew brought out their petrol powered fans to inflate their craft.

There's something strangely addictive about watching one after the other rise to a point where they can't possibly clear the trees, but they do, before falling almost back into the water, but they don't, then finally finding their ascendency and drifting off to the horizon each following the other as if joined by string.

As a mode of transport they make no sense at all, yet  at the same time if one can live with the randomness of the journey they make absolutely perfect sense.