How hard can it be?

There was an assessment in today's balloon class.

Balloon tutor is so caught up in running/growing her company, being a mother to young children and becoming a name in the field that forward planning for her students is way behind so we do a practice one week and an assessment the next.

I missed the practice for this piece.

She did her best to warn me that it wasn't something to be attempted by amateurs and that I could wing it but should be prepared for a re-take at some unearthly hour on a future Monday morning.

I thought "how hard can it be?"

She then told me that the large hand-pump I'd ordered wasn't there so I'd have to use an air compressor with a sizer. Thirty seconds in I realised it was harder work physically but mentally far easier to use the small pump, even if my biceps were crying for mercy within thirty minutes.

I made a packed balloon wall. There was a shed-load of latex, lots of pumping, oodles of elbow grease and a small amount of common fucking sense.

I passed.

Some qualifications really are worthless. Balloon display artistry is one of them.