It was a beautiful evening; gorgeous blue sky and warm and we sat around happily waiting for the pilot to arrive. He was driving up from Bonn and was obviously caught in the Friday evening traffic and nothing could start without his consent. Of course, the usual grumpies were present who couldn't just enjoy the scene, but had to moan and groan about the wait, but nothing could dampen Albert's and my spirits - we were totally looking forward to the experience.

Once the pilot arrived we all helped setting up the balloon, which, to my surprise, was a very speedy procedure. Having only ever seen them float across the sky, I hadn't realised that they were so enormous. Deflated and stretched along the ground, the balloon was at least 30 metres long, but with the help of two powerful fans it didn't take very long to inflate. Several of us had to hold on to two lines of rope to keep the balloon steady while it was inflating. What an impressive sight it was: almost in slow motion the balloon majestically rose to its full height. It was absolutely fascinating to watch.

The sight was utterly amazing, we could see for miles across Hannover and all of us were busy picking out well-known landmarks or familiar buildings.

Special sights

When I realised that we would be flying over my friend Manuela’s house, I sent her a short text message saying we would be waving from the sky, so Manuela, Frank and their two children Nina and Tobias came out to see us and there we were madly waving to each other while Albert was busily taking photographs of us, them and everything else in sight.
My former appartment was right opposite Manuela's house and it was certainly strange and fun seeing it again from that particular angle.

The pilot must be given his due here as he had obviously realised there just wasn't enough wind to keep the balloon going and there were not many places around to land. He guided the balloon to a tiny, roughly 80 square metre, piece of no-man's land right next to a busy road, approximately 50 metres from the railway lines with overhead electric cables.
High-rise buildings were also very close by so, thanks to our pilot's skill, an utter catastrophe was completely avoided.

What a sight it must have been for the local residents! Several onlookers came to observe the unusual spectacle, especially as the balloon started to deflate and it looked as if it was about to cover the road. Manuela and her family had seen the balloon losing height and worriedly rushed to find out what had happened to us. As it was we had landed approximately 200 metres from her house.
The police and rescue services had been informed so, as a precaution, ambulances and the works turned up to check the situation.

After the initial buzz of what had happened died down, we then had to set about packing the now deflated balloon into it’s enormous bag, and to somehow get the basket back on to the transport trailer of the van. I have no idea how many square metres of material a hot air balloon consist of, but it was no mean feat rolling it together and pressing the air out.
Luckily the van was able to drive right up to the basket, so we were, at least, spared the exertion of having to carry that.

Once all the necessities were completed we received a glass of bubbly and the pilot declared us all to "Knights of the air". This is a strange procedure, which, so we were told, dates back to 1783 when only peers were allowed to take part in a balloon ride. Unfortunately the belief was, that once a person flies up to the heavens then he wouldn't come back again, so there weren't any peers prepared to take the chance. Instead, for testing purposes, prisoners were sent on the flights – obviously in the 1780's the peers and fellow countrymen were not unduly worried whether or not the prisoners returned from the heavens!


But, return they did and as compensation the prisoners received a piece of the land over which they had flown and were declared to peers.

Sadly, the courtesy of being given a piece of land is not paid in today's times but, as the law has never been changed, and having completed a flight and returned from the heavens (so to speak) we were destined to be declared peers by the pilot. This involved kneeling on the floor and having a lock of hair set on fire, which in turn was (very quickly) extinguished by a splash of bubbly. Due to the amount of hairspray I use, I was not certain if this was a good idea but I survived and we have now been respectively baptised as "Countess Helen of Aerial Ramble Ride" and "Prince Albert, Fearless Air-Pirate to Thuja Hedge".