UP, up and away - that was the cry when the organisers of next month’s Trawden Garden Festival released 500 balloons as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The balloons had been sold at £1 a time to help raise money towards the cost of the festival and the accompanying Scarecrow Trail and offered a prize of £100 to the person sending a ticket back to Trawden from the most distant point.
First came one from Long Preston ... then one from Whalley ... and then things began to get interesting.
A ticket arrived from Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, which organisers thought was an amazing distance for a balloon to travel.
But this week came the news that a balloon had been found in the Dutch town of Hengelo, in the eastern Netherlands - a distance of 635 miles.
“It is an incredible distance. We still have a couple of weeks until the closing date but it will take some beating,” said a spokesman.