Ballooning It was called The Captive: a French balloon with a basket big enough for 30 paying customers. The ropes kept it - most of the time at least - hovering at 2,000 feet: Cremorne and the rest of London spread out like a toy town beneath. Eliza had heard about the great ascents: Mr Green, who'd taken up a lady and a leopard. De Groof with his deathly flying machine. And then there'd been all that fuss about the dancer and the bull. She'd never been able to afford the admission, but she'd watched them from the workhouse: great swollen hulks casting shadows the like of which she'd never seen; the roar and huff of the gas, that somehow kept them aloft. Eliza was 100 years old today, treated to the 10/- a head price of a tethered flight - a publicity stunt, no doubt, but she didn't care about that. They were gentlemanly: helped her up the steps, brought her a cup of tea, asked if she was comfortable. Fireworks threw colours into the sky as teams of men loosened the ropes. The basket jolted, creaked, and then reluctantly left the ground. Eliza had never so much as travelled by train. She had grown up thinking that birds were the only ones lucky enough to fly. The basket swung gently. The fire gushed up into the cavern of the balloon. They were flying. Eliza, stood, shakily, and asked a kind-faced lady to point out the workhouse at Fulham. It looked like a child had made it out of wooden bricks. It looked like something you could pick up and place in the palm of your hand. www.secretgardenproject.wordpress.com