Brexit is having a negative effect on the NHS with the number of nurses from the EU coming to work in the UK has fallen dramatically in the past year and in increasing number are leaving. It is leaving 40,000 unfilled posts in the NHS. There have also been warnings that EU based car companies are likely to replace their UK suppliers for parts with alternatives in the EU, as it will be easier sourcing within the Common Market. The Speaker, John Bercow, has given the government till Tuesday evening to provide the papers to the Exiting the European Union committee of cross party MPs, or provide an explanation why it has not occurred by then.
Following on from the tales of mysogeny and ways to combat it in Parliament, there is now the fall-out from the so-called Paradise papers, showing the widespread use of offshore trusts for tax avoidance. Even the Queen (and most pension trusts) have millions stashed away in these legal tax loopholes.
Having fed some Koi with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and met with the Emperor and Empress of Japan before jetting out to South Korea. The US is still reeling from the latest massacre of 26, including children, in a church in Texas, where guns are still not the issue.
In contrast, my Virgin Balloon ride was on at last, after nearly a year of trying. To avoid the rush hour traffic, I optimistically set off one and three quarter hours to arrive early and have a breakfast at a nearby Holiday Inn, before checking in at the launch area at Huntingdon Race Course at 9 am. Due to an accident blocking the A14 at Huntingdon and causing chaos all the way down to within a mile of where I joined it. it took me one hour and forty minutes to get there, just in time for a last stop at the loo. The pre-launch message last night had suggested it might be prudent to wear wellies in case the launch field was muddy. Encouraged by the lush grass, my ankle length trainer boots were fine
Being among the first, another and I were partnered to help inflate the balloon by holding the lower end open. I had not realised that the balloon is initially inflated with cold air, until it looks like a giant gourd lying on the ground. It is then that the burners are started and hot air begins to generate the lift. It became increasingly difficult to hold on to the balloon as it billowed upwards. Letting go, it did not take long for the globe to expand, rising to start tugging at the basket. I went into the basket head over heels with Pilot Pete to add a bit of ballast, followed by the rest of the passengers.
A quick security briefing, then it was sit down in the basket for all twelve of us as the burners generated more lift. Imperceptibly, we rose above the ground and gently accelerated into a slow climb into the sky. Initially we were travelling northwards till we entered a south-easterly breeze at about 500 feet. We continued to climb, reaching over 3,500 feet as we drifted over Huntingdon. I took lots of photos, but with altitude, the faint mist below, only just perceived by eye, reduced the contrast on the images.
The relatively low altitude of the balloon flight, the silent passage occasionally interrupted by the roar and radiated heat of the burners, all made it more fascinating to watch the houses, roads, cars miniaturised below and stretching into a distant horizon. We could see the playing field with several football pitches, filled with tiny figures at play. The shadows of a line of cows stretched across a meadow as the autumn sun was still relatively low on the horizon.
We were fortunate to also pass over the Hemingfords and then St Ives, where I could pick out familiar landmarks I'd visited or passed through. After an hour, the balloon gradually sank lower as Pete aimed for a stubble field. Just a few hundred feet above a field, we were noticed by a herd of multicoloured - and quite handsome - cows. Rather than flee as we thought they might, they moved closer, looking up with obvious curiosity as we passed overhead.
Within a few tens of feet of the ground we all resumed our landing positions, sitting in the basket and holding tight. The landing was a lot bumpier. We had been warned we might bounce between three and six times. We all counted along and just when we thought there might be a seventh, instead the basket leant over 45 degrees on the ground. For a few seconds we held that position, till it gently righted and we had landed. The balloon rapidly deflated and soon lay like a two dimensional shadow of itself.
Climbing out and helping to fold the balloon and pack it into the impossibly small bag for such a large canopy, I began to regret not having worn wellies after all. The stubble barely covered a very claggy ground and our shoes and boots soon doubled in weight and gained an inch or so in height with the accumulating clay. All packed up, balloon and basket finally winched onto the trailer that had met us, we escaped to a grassier area by the access path for photographs and the welcome celebratory fizz, or in my case, orange juice.
We clung onto the trailer as it took us down the bumpy track to the tarmacked road, we boarded the waiting minibus to take us back to our cars. Fortunately the A14 was now clear till the junction with the A428/M11 due to another accident, near Histon. I went into Cambridge on the Huntingdon Road and then out again via Milton Road, home by lunchtime.
Thank you Louise, Alex and Jane for a great 2016 birthday present!
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