Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

This weekend is a holiday weekend in Canada. For most Canadians this means a weekend away at the cottage in the wilderness. For us it means plenty of time to sit around drinking hot chocolate and relaxing.

Yesterday morning we took a drive out to the border with the US. It is only 40 minutes away and I had to get some paperwork corrected with the customs office. In the afternoon we had planned to go to the hot air balloon festival but as it raining heavily we didn’t think the balloons would fly so we went to the cinema instead. We saw Constant Gardner, but perhaps didn’t enjoy it as much as we could have because we had to sit in the second row and so were too close to the screen to see it properly. Sarah enjoyed it more than I did.

On Sunday we played golf at a pitch and putt course in the morning and saw a deer. Very exciting. The weather was glorious in the afternoon so we headed over to Quebec for the hot air balloon festival. All these festivals have stalls and rides and this one had more than its fair share. There were also several music stages and a strong man contest – we missed the strong man contest even though we got there at the scheduled event time. Not to worry, the main reason for going was the hot air balloons. They were supposed to begin lifting off at half past five, and as people were starting to get good vantage points at half past four, we decided we’d better too. The schedule wasn’t worth the recycled paper it was printed on and we sat for over an hour and a half looking at a field and getting grumpy at parents for not apologising when their kids trod on us.

The wait was worth it in the end though as balloon after balloon was inflated, lifted off and drifted away over the city. We were really close to a couple of teams as they set about getting their balloons inflated. At one point the wind must have changed as the half inflated balloon headed for us and the rest of the crowd before a couple of the team managed to pull it away using a guide rope. We saw about 50 balloons in all, most of them brightly coloured yet standard balloon shape. The best ones were the unusually shaped ones like the owl and Van Gogh’s head. The impressionist master would have enjoyed the surreal image of a 100ft replica of his head floating past a fairground. After we’d seen the last balloon take off, we tried to following them in our car but it seems everyone else at the festival had the same idea and it took us ages to get out of the car park.

Anyway, we’ve had a lovely relaxing weekend. We’ve had a nice roast for lunch and we’re going to head out for a walk along the river and maybe catch sight of the balloons filling the sky over the city as the festival is on today also.