Two years I went to Longleat’s Sky Safari, a day of hot air balloon delight culminating in a night glow, where pilots fired their burners to illuminate the balloons coordinated to music. Actually, I went to the Sky Safari at the weekend but did the Thursday night passholders-only night glow. And it was so great and I was so sad that I missed it last year but it happened while I was still in Russia.
The Sky Safari, like so many things, isn’t happening this year but they put on two nights of Drive-In Night Glow and I managed to get hold of one of the tickets.
I was surprised to find, when I arrived ten minutes before the gates opened, to find that I was at least the two hundredth car in. Probably more. I was also surprised how many people were hiking up the field to the food sheds and toilets, especially the ones carrying their camp chairs while a loudspeaker announced “please stay by your car unless you’re visiting the facilities.”
I knew from a drive-in comedy gig in July that the most comfortable place in my car to sit for a couple of hours is the passenger seat and so I settled in to wait, while being increasingly irritated by unidentifiable faint thumps that might be the sound system, might be several hundred people slamming car doors as they get in or out, might be related to the preparing balloons or might even be army practice fire in the Wiltshire hills.
After twenty minutes or so, it occurred to me that I should probably investigate the food sheds. My findings were that dirty fries were by far the most popular and the queue stretching back to the cars was just for them. If you wanted a hot dog or an ice cream or waffle or doughnut, you could walk straight past the fries queue. I opted merely for a hot chocolate, which was about as good as they usually are – tongue-scorchingly hot, a bit oily and very watery. Hot chocolate needs to be made with milk or at least have enough splashed in to immediately turn it lukewarm. Pleased with the novelty of using my car’s cupholders for the first time in twelve years, though.
There was some entertainment while we waited apart from the food sheds and the queue. There was a live band, the Roustabouts Collective, who were great and who, I see from their website, were likely to be the fire spinners as well as the band. The trouble was, other than visiting the food sheds and the toilets, we were supposed to stay in or next to our cars and anyone wandering up to look at the fire spinners was promptly sent away, which is why this is the best picture I got of them:
We also had these two angels wandering around between the cars, mostly taking photos with small children, some of whom were very reluctant to pose with the tall scary ladies while their mummies and daddies walked away far enough to get the angels in the photo. I enjoyed the small boy who stood between them and stared up in open-mouthed wonder, though, oblivious to a parent trying to persuade him to look at the phone.
And thus the hour of waiting flew by. I got out of my car and settled myself down on the bonnet to watch, with my camera perched on its little tripod to film the whole thing while I took photos with my phone. I like these photos – this is me realising that the reason I can’t see my car on the screen is that it’s right behind me.
At eight, as per the official schedule, there came the cry of “Pilots! Start your fans!” We’d been told the Night Glow started at 8pm and would finish at 8.20 so I was dismayed that the inflating took well over fourteen minutes. Six for the actual glow?!
No. No, Longleat are better than that. Once all the balloons were inflated, we got twenty-five minutes of glowing and dancing. It’s not exactly in time to the music but that doesn’t make it any less of a spectacle. And I’d been expecting them in front of me, along the lake. In fact, the field was surrounded by balloons on three sides.
So you’re in a field on a pleasant evening, with snatches of loud music, hot air balloons lighting up. It’s happy. You dance. You sing. You take far too many photos. The world is aglow.
Perhaps rather than try to explain, I’ll insert a video. It’s not the original music. I tried that two years ago. YouTube doesn’t like it. Imagine being surrounded by this spectacle for twenty-five minutes.
And such perfect weather for a glow! They can’t inflate the balloons if it’s windy and we’d have been miserable in the drizzle. Instead we got a lovely late-summer evening.
And then a long wait to depart because everyone went for it at once, instead of being dismissed line by line by the stewards like I’d expected. The drive-in comedy was much more organised, in that way. Right now the cars are parked just as much as they were half an hour ago but now they’re all facing south instead of west and I’m writing my blog on my phone in the car waiting for just about everyone to go to give me space to leave. (ETA: it took twenty minutes just to be able to join one of the departing queues).