Balloon sent in memory of British dad lands in Polish field

An English woman released a helium balloon into the sky over Birmingham, England, to commemorate the anniversary of her father's death.

She had no idea it would travel more than 1,000 miles (1,700 kilometers), crossing land and sea to end up days later in a field in northern Poland, where a farmer found it and was moved by the gesture of a grieving daughter.

"Sometimes when I speak to my dad, I look up into the sky. So the balloon, I hoped it would travel up there to him," Nicola Bowler, a nurse, said.

"My dad wasn't very well-travelled. He didn't go very far. So to see how far this has travelled would mean loads to him. He'd be laughing at all this."
Bowler and her husband released a number of standard small helium balloons on Sept. 2 along with one special star-shaped balloon printed with the words: "Always missed but never forgotten Dad / Derek, 26 Apr 50 - 02 Sep 2018."
On a whim, she hand-wrote another message with her phone number: "Please text me to see how far my dad has travelled. Nicola."