This evening I saw something that made me stop, stare and grin like an idiot.
I went over to Sherwood Forest for a thrash around on my bike, it's just a few miles from where I live. It's a beautiful, warm late summer's evening, with hardly a cloud in the sky. I was pedalling back, and behind me at six o'clock I noticed a hot air balloon, which is a common enough sight around here on a clear, still evening, not far away, half a mile maybe, couldn't guess at its altitude but not very high.
Then I heard the sound of jet engines, and from eleven o'clock, in front of me and to the left, flew in the Red Arrows, slow as you like, in two "vee" formations, one behind the other. According to their web site they've been doing a display in Scotland today, and it's an indirect way to get back to Scampton, but there they were, flying at what couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet. Anyway, the Arrows proceeded to fly underneath the hot air balloon - and as they passed under they hit the smoke for a three-four second burst, before going on their way and leaving a blanket of smoke below the balloon's basket. How cool is that? 8) Safe to say, if I had been in the balloon, I would have quite literally cr*pped myself with excitement...