Re. Fun with balloons.

Bandit Heeler
Brisbane
Queensland 
Australia

Dear Bandit,

I enjoyed reading your letter about keepy-uppy. I was very sorry to hear about Bluey's last balloon, and have enclosed a few balloons, which I hope she enjoys.

 I have a question, though: is the grass in Australia very sharp? I've never known grass to pop a balloon. But then, I'm from Scotland, where grass is a liquid, so you understand my confusion!

We've also been having some fun with balloons recently, and discovered a lot of cool things you can do with them. My favourite was when Littles taped a piece of paper to a balloon, declaring it a cape, and the balloon was upgraded to super-balloon (picture enclosed).
 

A different balloon met a darker fate, though, after Littles declared, "He really likes it when I pop him!" I have only her word for that, though.

She also drew a picture of a balloon eating a balloon on a balloon, which I thought was wonderfully meta.

We also made quite a lot of cool noises by stretching a balloon's untied neck to let the air out, including but not limited to "EeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeFllllwrp!" "EEEE EEEE EEE OOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooorrrf!" and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeplurpf!"

I wondered, and now I'm going to make you wonder, why a balloon, when let go, flies in circles? The untied neck - the engine as it were, flaps around at random, so you'd expect the balloon's trajectory to be random. But it's not, it goes in circles.

Another thing you can do with balloons is simply fill them with water and stick them in the freezer. Next day, you peel the balloon and you've got a sort of crystal ball made of ice. It's very cool. You can also stick waterproof toys in it if you feel so inclined, or paint, or food colouring.

My absolute favourite discovery we made about balloons, though, is that if you make a paper aeroplane and make a small tear in the middle, near the back, you can stick the neck of a balloon through, blow it up and let it go... and the balloon carries it up like a rocket! It may take some experimentation to get the hole the right size - too small and it just sinks and slowly deflates; too big and the balloon breaks free while the plane just falls.

Anyway, feel free to try any or all these things with the balloons I sent!

Give my love to Bluey, Bingo and Chilli.

All the best,


Alastair.




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