When Tom Donnelly, the retired owner of Balloon Rides Ltd met up with boss Kim Hull earlier this year, he asked if Kim would take him flying again. As we pilots need to make sure we are "current" after a winter layoff before flying passengers in the spring a plan was hatched. With Tom's daughter Cate we whisked him off to our balloon flight friends http://www.balloonintuscany.com/ in Italy for some spring flying. Although Tom and Cate were only there for two days, we hit lucky with some lovely weather on the second morning from the launch site at Tarvanelle just south of Florence, which we viewed from a distance with some low cloud partly concealing the cities famous Duomo Cathedral.