It's time to go back to Cappadocia...
We tripped our way back to our little studio at the end of our first evening in Uchisar: umbrellas up, anorak hoods crackling around our ears and torrential rain springing back up at us from the cobbled path. We were trying to stay jolly so we lit a fire and all the candles and brightly talked about how we might actually prefer taking photographs of cloudy skies. Who needs peerless blue, we kept saying.
Finally, exhausted from our two flights, we collapsed into bed. We were woken early by the oddest sound. For all the world, it sounded as though as a dragon was sighing outside our window...
and, well he might sigh... it was incredibly, undeniably foggy.
You see, we had come to Cappadocia, land of the fairy chimney, to fly in a hot air balloon at dawn. Mum had dreamt of it for years and here we were. Just 24 hours away from our own dawn departure.
As our day of rock churches and exceedingly long descriptions of the intricacies of dove cotes unfolded, the clouds broke a little and we began to hope. By dusk, the moon was smiling, nearly full and totally cloud free. We went to sleep whispering prayers to the weather gods.
If you haven't been in a balloon, I urge you to gather your pennies, don an unflattering number of layers of clothing, grab your camera and float...
Then, when you feel as though you've held your breath for 90 minutes, said WOW so many times and each time known it wasn't doing the thing justice, see if your pilot can spot - 100s of feet below - a wildflower meadow, complete with a herd of sheep.
See if he can land your dragon on a six foot square trailer...
and then, in a field of pink campions with your favourite Mummy, when you think you might just pop with the joy of it all, they'll hand you a glass of cherry juice and champagne.
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