Hi,
Turns out Mike had driven into work yesterday which was a great opportunity to take home some personal stuff from work. Far easier in the car than in my pannier. However, I was able to take far fewer things due to my visit to the drycleaners. For the "hot air balloons" Tuesday night at Cubs, I had read that drycleaning bags work well and we'd played with one yesterday morning to see if it had potential. It did, so at 4pm I walked to the local drycleaners and asked if I could buy 35 bags. They said no. Oh. But, they said they had a flawed batch they couldn't use and I could have that!
Great! Bit of Sellotape and it'd be fine. I ended up with a huge roll of about 1000 bags! My arms are still sore from carrying it back to work.
So, home for dinner (yummy spag bol - ta Mike) and straight into the prototype mark 2. In our kitchen, I tried to inflate a bag with just a blow dryer. It would take off great and immediately plummet to the floor. The hot air was dissipating faster than it should. Mike then suggested flames would be the best bet to keep a constant heat source.
Back to google to search for some refinements. Sure enough, a slight tweak to provide a cross bar from pipecleaners where a cotton ball soaked in meths could sit and be ignited looked like a good option. Toby started to shift uncomfortably in his seat as he finished off his spag bol. I made some pipecleaner cross bars, attached it to the bottom of the bag and Mike placed the soaked cotton ball on the precarious platform. Mike also placed our fire extinguisher close at hand - just in case.
Mike lit the cotton ball and I held the top of the "hot air balloon" waiting for it to lift off. But it turned out the pipecleaners were way more combustible than anyone could have foreseen. The platform caught fire, the plastic bag started to melt away, the fiery cotton ball fell burning to the ground, I dropped the entire balloon, Toby instigated his fire evacuation plan and shot out to the letter box shouting "come on guys" and Mike decided to stamp out the fire with his shoe. Needless to say, the ignited meths just spread to his shoe and he was stomping around trying to put his shoe out.
The excitement was just about to reach fever pitch when Mike finally waved at the flames with his hands and the wee fire went out. The floor is hardly scorched, Mike's shoe was getting old anyway, and eyebrows and fringes grow back. Just joking. Although we are proud of Toby's fire evacuation plan. He was the only one doing the right thing.
Toby started carrying around the fire extinguisher as we moved outside with prototype 4 by this stage. I found some straws to construct the platform, and used tin foil to make a little tray to hold the cotton ball. I stood outside holding the balloon while Mike added the ignited cotton ball. Success! The balloon started to inflate. Mike decided it needed a second burning cotton ball and added that.
Hmmmmm. Turns out two burning cotton balls is a little bit too much for drycleaning plastic to withstand. As I held the top of the balloon, the bottom of it withered away into shrivelled plastic. I dropped the burning mass to the bricks, Toby asked if he should use the extinguisher and Mike and I had uncontrollable laughter.
The stillness of the night and the bright stars were appealing as I wiped the tears from my eyes, so I suggested a walk. We left the house with the all pervasive smell of burning plastic (It smells like a ski shop said Mike this morning) and went for a walk. We dropped off a birthday present to Jack and had a quick catch up with his parents. I think they might think we are quite mad as we explained the evening's shenanigans.
Back home to bed and into a pleasant slumber.
Tonight we ask the Cubs to build their own balloons, and possibly try to launch one or two with burning cotton balls. With the proviso that they don't try it at home. We know this from experience.
Have a good day!
Love,
Angela
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