squirmelia | Balloons and a smashed-up guitar

On my way to the Millais Gallery, I gazed upon a shiny blue star-shaped balloon that was caught in the bare branches of a tree in the park. (It looked like these balloons: star-shaped in Exeter.) Nick had seen a balloon too and we presumed we had both seen the same balloon, but he explained that he didn't tend to remember the colour of things, not the colour of the balloon nor even the colour of his own eyes.

I suppose that must have been a few months ago, since most of the trees around here are fully cloaked with leaves now.

In Angelica's Grotto, Russell Hoban writes, "He tasted, like fruit gums, the intensely red, green, and amber of traffic lights." Sometimes the world does seem that vivid, but other times I can't remember the colour of a person's eyes either and that bothers me.

Nick and I intended to go to the Once more... with feeling exhibition to see the Ötztal Alp shoe, but despite the "open" signs, it was closed. We wandered around the back and stared in through the windows at a smashed-up guitar, before leaving to sample the free wine and olives at the City Gallery.

Just before we parted, Nick let me listen to a silence that he had recorded - the silence inside the cupboard in his bedroom.

On Friday night, I saw on Newsround that hot air balloons have been floating over Stratford-upon-Avon waking people up with music.