Memory Lane

Bethany was very excited this evening when a hot air balloon went over the garden, the usual conversation then ensued, could she go in a balloon, I explained she was too young to go in one, but when she was older I would take her. I told her that I had been in a balloon once and we came to look on the computer to find a picture of this balloon because the one I had flown in was very special, at the time it was the tallest air balloon in Europe.

Isn't he huge, if I remember rightly he was about 110 feet tall. I was on my way to work at a balloon festival a few years ago and I saw him flying over me at 5.30 in the morning followed by the support vehicle. At the festival I had a visit from the balloon team, they had seen my van that morning and noticed it again on site and had come to see if I wanted to go up in Bertie Bassett. Did I ! It was one of the most surreal things I have ever done, although you can hear things from the ground, the noises are almost not there, it was so peaceful. To make the experience even more unreal it had been announced that morning by Cadbury Trebor Bassett (the owners of the balloon) that Bertie was being retired so I was one of the last people ever to fly in him.
This got me thinking back to my old job so I googled to find an image of one of the cars I used to drive, not only did I find my car (there were five of them) but I found a picture of my van towing it. I do not recognise where I am parked, we toured with these for five years maybe longer all over the UK, so it could be just about anywhere. I had the best job in the world, selling, and sometimes giving away chocolate, I went to music festivals, the commonwealth games in Manchester after a fifty day tour of the UK on the Queens Jubilee Baton Relay, I went to football games, Rugby matches, the Battle of the Flowers in Jersey, supermarket car parks, you name it we did it.

Most time we towed these little babies, but every now and again we took them for a spin, I went to a wedding in the egg in Blackpool, a surprise for the bride arranged by her family, she was chocolate mad and her wedding was themed around Cadburys. I even drove it behind the hearse at my bosses funeral, he would have laughed his head off. One completely mad day when I had been at Legoland all week and I could not be bothered to go back to the yard to pick up the trailer and go all the way back to Legoland to pick up the creme egg car and load her onto it yet again, I let my colleague drive my dairy milk van (not something that happened very often, I loved my van and was very precious with her) and took her out on the road, this always caused a bit of a stir, people could never believe what they were seeing, but to really stir things up we went home via the M25. How we never caused an accident I will never know, people were trying to take photos of the car while they were driving, one couple nearly went off the motorway altogether, they were so surprised, it was fantastic drive home (not the near accidents obviously) the most fun I have ever had driving it, except maybe our little spin around Glasgow, we had people chasing us down the road, and a cyclist ran a red light overtaking us and nearly took out a pedestrian. (not that, that should be amusing, the pedestrian was ok in case you wondered, but I do have a seriously bad sense of humour) The stories I could tell you, but I will cease my waffling now, but I had such good times.