This past week our house has been an “internet free” zone so I have been going to a coffee café after the gym each morning, pc in hand, to do my blogging work, peruse Facebook and answer emails.  The coffee café is a rather entertaining place frequented by the local dance troupe and the local book club and a selection of other locals. It is run by two Korean brothers. Identical twins. One takes the morning shift and the other the afternoon shift. When I first started coming to the café a few years ago I was unaware that there were two separate people. I thought: “boy this fellow works long hours” and “wow, he is sure different in the morning from the afternoon.”  Finally, I was there one day at noon and saw that there were two people, identical physically, but with quite different personalities. Anyway, it is an entertaining place to spend some time.

Mid-week the Word Press Photo Challenge arrived. Earth. “Oh dear,” I thought. “That will be photos of earth from space, earth growing things, earth as mud, earth as desert, earth…” I don’t have any photos that would work for those ideas. So, I thought that this week would be a miss for me. But then, from a group quite close to me in the café, I overheard this…..

“What on earth was he thinking to say that?”

Ah! What on earth?   I had been waiting for a chance to write something about Balloon Man and here it was, the chance I had been waiting for.

What on earth is a balloon man?  That is just what I asked myself one afternoon, while I was still in Florida, and watching Lou Denizard teach one of his other students. Every once in a while he would say: “Balloon man!” to her. During a break, I asked him: “What’s a balloon man?”

“You know those balloons they use for advertising, that have air blowing through them, and they flop up and down? Those are balloon men.”  He went on to explain that he did not think his student looked like a balloon man but it was his reminder to her that she needed to be more solidly in the saddle.

One day I saw one as I was driving home. There he was! Mr. Balloon Man himself. I had to stop and take some photos. Best part of it was that he looked like he was riding a motorbike!  Serendipity!

To see some of the other responses to this week’s challenge  click this link.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/earth-2017/