I rarely rise before 9am on a weekend day but for this one exception and at the great persuasion of Mr. Hippo, I managed to rise at 4am. The occasion was the Hot Air Balloon Festival at Harris Park in London. The morning air was cool and the sky clear as the dawn broke. A perfect blue canvas for the balloonists to paint upon with their astounding inflatable giants. I looked up with the wonder of a child as the mass ascension of nearly 30 hot air balloons took place over the span of an hour.
There was a concurrent Ribfest which Mr. Hippo and I enjoyed as a bonus as well as visiting a friend of mine from residency who was now doing her fellowship in London. She had just had her second child, a boy and was settling into motherhood again. An outsider to London medical society, she was still able to fill me in on the gossip of the department of which there was much (too much?). Mr. Hippo commented that the tales of the department could rival any Grey's Anatomy Plot. Now is that art imitating life or life imitating art?
