Countess takes a pop at Virgin after balloon floats past bathroom
ONE of the great advantages of owning a sprawling Cotswolds stately home in 15,000 acres of unspoilt parkland is being untroubled by the hoi polloi.
So imagine the horror of Countess Bathurst when she opened her curtains to see 16 excited tourists in a Virgin hot air balloon staring back.
The visitors were busy photographing their birds-eye view of Cirencester Park mansion in Gloucestershire.
The fuming countess, 52, took to Twitter to express her anger at Virgin Balloon Flights.
Alongside a picture of the red balloon, she wrote: “Not the sort of thing you wish to see when you draw the curtains in the morning. Gross invasion of privacy. Not impressed.”
She later added: “It was about 9am when it happened. I had been in my bedroom quietly catching up with emails and then I went into the bathroom.
“I opened the curtains and there was this bloody great big hot air balloon.
“It was so low that it looked to me as if it had to gain height just to be able to get over the house and carry on.
“It was totally unacceptable for the pilot to come so close and so low.
“He obviously wanted to be able to give his passengers a good close view of the house and they certainly got one.
“There were at least a dozen passengers in the basket and they were so close I could see them clicking away on their cameras and mobile phones and the flashes going off,” she added. Countess Bathurst later received a phone call from the pilot who gave an “abject apology” and promised it would never happen again.
The balloon is understood to have taken off from nearby Cotswold airport at Kemble and was blown off course by a gust.
The countess, who lives on the estate with her husband Earl Bathurst, 56, said: “It filled me with alarm. This was just not on.
“The grounds may be open but one has to be a little bit protective about one’s own garden and house.”
Virgin Balloon Flights has also apologised.
IT’S not what you expect when you open your bathroom curtains in the morning: a hot-air balloon hovering outside full of tourists taking pictures. But that is what happened to Countess Bathurst, who had a Virgin balloon swooping down on her Cirencester Park mansion. The pilot has since apologised but our sympathies are with her. We hope saying sorry was not just a lot of hot air…