A very warm welcome to you however you have arrived here! Although primarily involved in all aspects surrounding the repair and maintenance of hot air balloons, including matters of continued airworthiness, we also have a somewhat eclectic approach to our business and interests. It is also the case that many of our friends actually have interests outside of ballooning so we have devised this site to be a mix of information crucial to the continued airworthiness of balloons along with other things that we find rather interesting. So please feel free to check out the articles or simply use the information in the pages. It should all be downloadable if you want to print it out or use it. In the news is a bit about an old Gannet discovered in Scotland and Trappe’s latest proposed cluster balloon adventure. For the ride operators the season seems to have finally got underway but reports suggest that the flights so far this year have all been pretty hard fought. Let’s hope the weather does improve sooner rather than later but with predictions that the weather patterns have actually changed is not all that cheery. Never mind, chins up, its invade France soon with the British Nationals and Metz coming up in the next month or so. For those that may have noticed there is now an old lurcher staggering about the place on occasions. His name is Gus and he’s 15 years old. We seem to have adopted him from a friend of ours who lives in New Zealand. Long story. Anyway he is deaf, skinny and a bit doddery but nice enough.
We’ve had a great couple of weeks with social visits from Messrs Batchelor and Thomas Wilson amongst others. A big thanks for all the cakes and biscuits, seems weight is going on steadily. Robin arrived in his Trojan two-stroke which we finally managed to get going again so he could drive back to Thame. Thomas, best remembered as one of the pilots that took the Heller shapes on tour and later flew many commercial balloons for The Airship and Balloon Company, stopped on route to a mega-adventure trekking the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail which will probably take him quite a while! Jane, along with Graeme Scaife, Emma Hurst and Richard Ashford got a shorter trip, courtesy of Steve Roake, to look around the McLaren Factory and her report is now up. The annual pilgimage up to Coombe Hill on the longest day to watch the sunset went off very smoothly and yes the sky was clear. We have long since reckoned that watching it set on the Longest day is far more social than getting up at very sparrows to watch it rise. We are lucky in that Wendover has a drum group that truck their bongos up there and entertain us, article somewhere. A big thanks go to Richard Bowater who has kindly sent us a bit about the Bedale Meet along with some piccies which should be up.
Life in the round-to-it workshop have been moving slowly ahead in so far as we have had another clearout and rearrangement so that we can get on with the projects various that lurk in there but not much new to report as most of the effort is now going into sorting a new workshop ahead of the HS2 invasion. There was a meeting in the village to address some of the issues of compensation but as predicted there isn’t anything for displaced businesses unless they own the site they are on but next week the Government HS2 roadshow hits town so gloves on for that. After a chat with our MP, Mr Lidington, he did however offer to come and visit us so we await a date with baited breath. Let’s hope a couple of Roe deer will bound across the field during his visit. Well, that’s the rant bit over. Thanks again for visiting please have a canter round and enjoy the site we hope that you find something of interest. Best regards Chris, John, Jane and pregnant Alice (o: