It’s Not a Party Without Unexpected Hot Air Balloons
It’s Not a Party Without Unexpected Hot Air Balloons
Beer in Bléré
The French side of my family had a festive gathering this summer in a remote village called Bléré, in the Touraine region, right in the middle of France. The only things around us were two other houses and some large fields of sunflowers. It’s the perfect writer’s sanctuary: barely any cell phone reception, but an amazing view.
My wife’s grandparents were hosting a family reunion at their summer home with about 20 other family members, along with my wife and I. A giant fancy dinner was planned, complete with catering and a DJ for dancing, but before all that came the traditional apéro.
We arrived a bit late after setting up in a B&B beforehand, so the apéro started without us. I grabbed a chair in the shade to avoid the blistering sun. There were cheese cubes, saucisson, and peanuts available, and although there was lots of local rosé to drink, I chose a Belgian beer called Maredsous, which my wife’s family had brought from northern France. Maredsous Tripel is a strong 10 percent ABV. It didn’t do much to cool me off: the curse of a heat-sensitive ginger.
While we all relaxed around the table outside drinking, munching, and chatting, we saw in the distance a hot air balloon with a ladybug design; a delightful surprise. Soon, a couple more flew into view. More followed, until there were 11 hot-air balloons in view at one time. We looked up in awe, close enough to make out the silhouettes of people in the baskets. The balloons were descending quickly to landing spots in the empty fields ahead of us, and a couple of them hovered so close to the house we could see peoples’ faces as we waved to them. They could see us clearly too, because they waved back. I, being the oddball, was screaming in French, “You’re too close! Too close!”
While we were looking up, makeshift trucks with extended beds whizzed by to rendezvous with the hot air balloons where they landed. One of the trucks stopped close by, because a balloon had landed two fields away, just beyond the sunflowers. I noticed that the first balloon we had seen, the ladybug, was still in the air and soaring farther than all the others.
We saw the first truck drive by with a basket in tow at sunset, around the same time the ladybug floated out of sight.