The balloonist

    I had Lee Scoresby in mind when I was up in the balloon yesterday, but it was territory quite other than Svalbard we were flying over. You'll remember that in the beginning of Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows Rose and her family are living on a farm in the Pentland Hills just outside Edinburgh - that's the area you see above.

    But speaking of Lee Scoresby, in creating him Philip Pullman was inspired by The Balloonist by Macdonald Harris, now back in print; while I haven't read it, after my trip aloft I'm very inclined to re-read the utterly marvellous His Dark Materials.