63 days of balloons

Sixty-three days or thereabouts, and the community of balloons have taken on a more disordered, natural, organic look. They vary in size now from the specimen from Day 44, who is now about the size of a large pear to a yellow one a little bigger than a tennis ball right up to a couple which don't appear to have deflated much since they first arrived. We have ascribed life-like characteristics to them from the beginning, but as they become less able to move about and interact with the rest of the room, they now remind me of stones on a beach which have fetched up into a corner in their various shapes and sizes. Herself tells me she no longer likes them.

"They die. Slowly. I don't like them any more."

They do look a bit neglected and forgotten. But what to do? I'm still inclined to let them carry on until all the air leaks out of them, but that could be months yet.

Balloon Elder

This slightly shrivelled specimen is what old age looks like in the balloon world. Normally balloons live short, exciting lives that end abruptly, explosively, on a holly-leaf, a cigarette, or on someone's fingernails. The non-partying balloons we have kept in captivity for the past 44 days have, I hope, lived full lives. They have done the television thing, and the chasing the cats thing, the standing in the corner thing, and the swaying to music thing. Some of them have stayed together in pairs, while other lived a bachelor life. A few followed their own interests on their own.

The last thing that comes to balloons of a certain age is the shrinking. It starts with the symptoms you can see in our picture. It won't be many days now, I think, but hopefully we can keep our friend in relative comfort as we await the end. I steadfastly refuse the suggestion of euthanasia.

Feet up... I'm trying to wash the floor here

Day 16 in the Big Balloon House. Today it is time to wash the living-room floor, so the balloons are all herded onto a corner of the sofa. Some are beginning to look a little worse for wear. There are fingerprints on some, while about half of the total number are slightly deflated. They haven't gone into balloon middle-age just yet. That would be indicated by a generally flacid appearance and a stretchy, loose skin. In balloon years, these ones are in their 30s. Balloon gym might arrest some of the symptoms, but they'd only pay a subscription then not bother attending. I'm not going to let them become couch potatoes either. As soon as the floor dries, its back onto it melads!

That's a teddy bear being smothered by the yellow balloon, a la an episode of The Prisoner. The blanket belongs to a cat. You are beginning to get a feeling for the kind of house we live in by now.

I don't do sharing

Rising 4 - Eleven fun-filled days of balloons

They are still here.

They have watched 11 days of televison, from dour news channels to Dr Who to music television. They shared the wonder of the Eurovision. And construction programmes. And all the shite we watched in between. A couple of them had close squeaks. I stood on one and it shrieked, but didn't burst. Herself apologised to one this evening when it became entangled in the legs of her work trousers and started to grumble.

On Sunday, I arose at 8.30am to find the whole herd asleep in front of the television, the curtains pulled. Later, a piece of corned beef went West and the cat retrieved it by wearing a green balloon briefly on his head.

Only the unmoving shrunken blue one still bears testament to the fate of all balloons.

My work-mates think my single stripe of promotion has unhinged me. I show them video of the balloons moving in time to the music on television, and they put on that "Humour him" look. Sometimes, instead, they change the subject.

But each evening I come home I thread a path through them all and plug in the television, feed the cats, and watch the balloons come alive.

You won't know unless you go.

Do it.

Go out and buy a dozen or so balloons and let them loose in a room.

You may be surprised.

Rising 3 - Balloons do Eurovision

Rising 2

Balloons show a decidedly callous attitude to the death of a friend. We have had our tribe of multi-coloured spheroids for two nights now, and one of them -- a blue specimen, who always looked a little more sickly than the others -- has shrivelled up into the size of a duck egg and lies pathetically ignored in the middle of the herd.

They also have a tendency to graze in different directions, which I find odd. Little clusters have developed, some by the occasional table, another threesome peering into the cat's dish, a third looking disinterested in the middle of the floor, and a fourth group made up of a few die-hards still watching television whether anything is on or not.

They got so unruly tonight that Herself herded them all together again with a "Shuck! Shuck! Shuck!" noise I hadn't heard before, but which I immediately associated with gathering errant ducks.

Only "Doctor Who" rivetted their attention on Saturday. The rest of the time they looked kind of sullen. I know for a fact the replacement for the dead blue balloon is already displaying signs of being a loner. It keeps away from the others a little.

I have a short video of them swaying to a music television channel, but can't upload it in its current configuration to the Blog. When I do, you'll believe me when I say that they live strange lives of their own.

I toyed with the idea of resuccitating the dead blue balloon, but couldn't undo the knot.

There's a lesson in there for us all.

Rising

My Uncle Billy, who ran a pitch 'n' putt golf course used to say: "There's nothing worse than the public." I thought this a strange one from someone who depended on the public for his livelihood, then understood a little when I looked at vandalised bridges, broken flag-sticks and other pointless destruction wrought by the public on the golf course, until finally I understood completely when I took a job dealing by telephone with them.

My love and I both work in high-pressure jobs, not that our wages reflect it. Although our jobs are different, we try our best to satisfy and serve as many people as possible within the limits of what can be done (often different to what should be done). People occasionally thank us for our efforts, or ask us to thank our bosses on their behalf.

But one thing that happens, at least daily, is that the great Irish public displays its mettle by eating the arse off one or both of us. In my experience you have the "I want it now" type, who wasn't dropped enough times on his head as a kid, or, at the other extreme, the genuinely fucked-around-with type that a dozen never-to-be-repeated coincidences and delays have pissed off so badly that he just wants to decapitate the first eegit to say "Hello" on the other end of the telephone line.

So I got balloons.

I took a packet and a half and started blowing them up at a quarter-to-seven this evening. Fuck the cats, they could wait ten minutes longer to be fed. I huffed and puffed and filled the room with brightly-coloured latex bags of air and we watched them bump about. Happy little opinionless people filled the floor.


A large group of them swayed about as if discussing the doings of the day. Then I put on a television programme about building houses and they sat in rapt attention for the first half hour.

Some turned about to exchange glances with their neighbours when the builders proved inept, or the cost of restoration of shoddy workmanship came up, but generally -- and especially the orange one in the front row -- they stayed glued to the subject.

The elder cat eyed a red one suspiciously. I have a feeling it's the reason she didn't finish off the full portion of Whiskas this evening. I'll have to keep an eye on that one if it intends to continue making trouble.

I have some uninflated spares, which I think I'll introduce into the company if any go astray. It's possible they might, either by accident, or by something they learned from watching television shows. There are books about, too, so they might consider reading while we sleep tonight. I think it's fun that you never really know what they're going to do next.