Hot-air balloons on a Saturday morning

Hiya

Early Saturday morning I'm woken by very loud whooshing sounds. Now, I usually have the window open in the other room. If my bedroom window is open, there's too much outside energy to keep me awake. The very loud whooshing sounds are familiar: hot-air balloons! I jump up and frantically grab for my camera, throw my kitchen window open – yessss! There they are. Two of them, almost overhead, drifting northward. More whooshing sounds, not from these two. For ten minutes, one after the other of these ephemeral objects with their fragile human passengers drift past, most of them soundlessly.
One of these days I'll have to grab a ride myself... For now, these photos are my view. Have fun!
Scarily close to neighbouring buildings, these two were the first I saw, and sinking fast. About to land on the football field a little ways up the road?
Numbers three and four in hot pursuit:
As numbers 3 and 4 drifted north-westward, numbers 5 and 6 came into view, with number 5 following the same route as the preceding ones. Unlike them, however, it didn't seem to be sponsored by a watch or coffee company:
Number 5 wasn't only the most beautiful of the lot, it also obligingly fired up well within viewing range ... :) ... while off in the distance, number 6 drifted across the sky in the background.
Number 7 drifted in from the west, creeping into the game like a maverick:
Firing up again, number 5 approached number 7, but kept sinking beyond the rooftop:
And another one (number 8) rises from the brightening skyline, the third one, I think, sponsored by a local coffee (roasting) company. It seems to slide down the edge of the rooftop opposite:
This one, must be number 10, looks huge as it creeps above the rooftops.
My beautiful columbines -- yesterday they were just buds, now they're already in full bloom -- provide the foreground to hot-air balloons numbers eight and nine.
It didn't look like it was going to be such a great day, but it turned out to get rather hot. The evening brought the first rain in weeks, and a welcome cooling-off.