Boy's balloon finds pen-pal: the Queen

A 4-year-old boy who released a balloon not long ago with a message hoping to find a pen pal in a foreign land ended up having a correspondence with the Queen.

Tom Stancombe let go of his helium balloon in Hampshire, but rather than flying to France or half way around the world, it ended up just 20 miles (32 km) away, landing inside Windsor Castle, the Daily Mail reported.

The Queen instructed her personal assistant to reply and so the monarch and the boy, helped by his parents, exchanged a series of letters, mostly about the fact that one of the boy's ancestors, an artist, had works in the royal art collection.

"She (the Queen) was delighted to find that your balloon had travelled all the way to the gardens at Windsor Castle," the monarch's assistant wrote.

Asked if he thought his son would be exchanging any more letters with the Queen, Tom's father said: "I don't expect we'll get another one, but I think it's incredible they bothered replying at all."

一个四岁的英国男孩不久前放飞了一只带有字条的气球，他希望能找一个外国笔友，没想到最后他竟然收到了女王的回信。

据《每日邮报》报道，这个名叫汤姆·斯坦科姆比的男孩在汉普郡放飞了他的氦气球，但这只气球并没有飞到法国、也没有环游大半个世界，而是落在了20英里（32千米）以外的温莎城堡里。

女王让她的私人助理给汤姆回信，在父母的帮助下，汤姆与女王通了好几次信，信的内容大多与他的一个艺术家祖先的作品曾被收入皇家美术馆有关。

女王的助理在信中写道：“你的这只气球经过漫长的旅程后，落到了温莎堡的花园中。她(女王)发现你的气球后非常高兴。”

当汤姆的父亲被问到儿子是否会继续与女王通信时，他说：“我不指望我们还能收到回信，但是令人难以置信的是，女王竟然回了信。”

Vocabulary:

pen pal :笔友