The "weather balloon" which was brought down

over the ocean yesterday will no doubt be shown to be what it really was when the United States officials investigate the debris. I will reserve judgment on it until then.

But the story brought back to mind a book once given to Brother Cat. I think he still has it. It was a book taken from the Oscar winning short film, "The Red Balloon". The Senior Cat brought it back from the city after being away there at a conference. He took his parents to see the film and copies of the book were on sale at the venue. They bought it for my brother.

Later my brother and I saw the film. We were in our teens by then and it was shown one night before something much more "grown up". Both of us thought "The Red Balloon" was a much better film. It was a delight - and remains so.

I was never very fond of balloons as a child. They rarely appeared in our house. When I was a very small kitten I would scream and sob if someone deliberately popped a balloon near me. Why I reacted like that I have no idea. Now I merely tolerate balloons. 

When we lived in a remote area the entire school once went on one of those "educational excursions" to a town (village in UK terms) which had a "weather station". We were shown over it with all the fascinating instruments that measured things like temperature and wind speed. There were those amazing magic machines which drew the wiggly red and black graphs and much more. The meteorologist who was showing us all this also inflated a "weather balloon" and sent it off. The balloon was black and must have been some sort of heavy duty one. I know one of the boys asked, "But what if it gets lost or goes bang?" The answer was something like, "We send up another balloon."

Now weather forecasting relies more on satellites than balloons. We relied on our mother. She was rather like most farmers. Now I look at the forecast in the mornings...and wonder how accurate it will be. I don't rely on balloons or satellites.

I wonder though if our lives are not rather like balloons at times. Perhaps we bounce gently along in the air until a gust of wind comes along. Then we might hit something. If we are fortunate we don't go bang. We survive. On other occasions the air might come out slowly. We need to be repaired or we need to be pumped full of air again so we can again go bouncing gently along. Eventually we perish and cannot be filled again....but we can see a lot before then. That little Red Balloon knew what it was doing.