Kim and the Cake Balloon Over Harpenden

Window cleaning makes you peckish, but I have learned never to say, “Ooh, just a little something,” at the first house of the day.

My first customer in Harpenden had made a Victoria sponge. Not one slice, she told me, but a whole cake, because I looked like I needed feeding up. I cleaned her windows, drank my tea and ate every crumb. At the next house there was a lemon drizzle cake. Then came chocolate fudge, carrot cake, a cherry Bakewell and a fruitcake heavy enough to use as a doorstop.

Every customer had baked. Every customer insisted. And, not wanting to hurt anybody's feelings, I ate a whole cake at every single house.

By the final cottage, I had cleaned six sets of windows and eaten six cakes. My bucket felt unusually light. So did my boots. I looked down and noticed that my trousers were no longer touching the path.

Then I began to swell.

My blue KP polo puffed out. My middle became rounder and rounder until I was shaped like an enormous parade balloon, with my head on top, my arms sticking out sideways and my boots waggling underneath. I was still holding my squeegee, which was not helpful at all.

“Oh, crumbs,” I said, as I floated over the hedge.

Up I went above the rooftops, drifting past chimneys, television aerials and a row of very surprised pigeons. Harpenden looked beautiful from up there. People in the gardens below pointed and waved. I waved back, mainly because I did not know what else to do.

That was when I noticed the eagle.

It circled once, gave me a suspicious look and landed on my shoulder. Before I could explain that I was not a giant inflatable landing platform, it pecked me on the side.

Pop!

All the air rushed out in one long, rude raspberry noise. I spun over a maple tree, bounced off a gust of wind and shot across the sky like a punctured party balloon. Down I went, getting smaller with every second, until I was my normal size again and falling towards a very neat garden with a sparkling blue swimming pool.

Splash!

I landed feet-first in Ed Sheeran's pool.

For a moment, everything was peaceful. A sponge finger floated past my ear. I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes and saw Ed standing beside the pool with a towel and the most puzzled smile I had ever seen.

“I was expecting a window cleaner,” he said, “but not from that direction.”

He helped me out, wrapped the towel round my shoulders and brought me a dry pair of socks. I explained about the cakes, the ballooning, the eagle and my rather direct route into his garden. By the time I had finished, we were both laughing so much that I nearly fell back in.

Ed gave me a lift home and promised not to tell everybody in Harpenden that their cakes had launched me into orbit. The next morning, six customers arrived with fruit baskets and one small slice of cake each.

I ate the slice, kept both boots firmly on the ground and declared it the perfect ending to a very full day.