Merry (authentic) Christmas

Unlike last year, we're spending this Christmas in the Gulf. My husband wasn't given any of the leave he asked for over the holiday period, so we're making the best of the three days off he *does* have (which we're very grateful for, mind you) and staying put.

God willing, he'll land tomorrow night after a trip to New York and then have three full, wonderful days to spend with us - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

This year has been a mixed one.  A few hopes have been dashed, but a few doors have opened, too.  One thing that's certainly true is that we've grown together as a family. I'm certainly more confident as a Mummy (after my very shaky start) and there is simply nothing like spending time together, just the three of us. Sometimes I catch myself, grinning as my husband plays with our beautiful son, and want to record the moment in my head so I can remember it forever. I think we make precious memories daily at the moment.

So, to the title of this post. I think we're all so fixated on the idea of a "White Christmas" (me included) that it's so easy to forget that Jesus was born in the Middle East. When I feel homesick (which I always do leading up to Christmas) I try to remember that I'm actually celebrating Christmas in the area Jesus lived in his entire life. He never saw a snow flake or frost - nope, he woke up to the sun shining (almost) every day, just like me. It's a thought that gives me a lot of comfort.

So - Merry Christmas to all my readers. May you have a wonderful, love filled Christmas, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for reading, I do appreciate it.

What really happened on Air France flight 447

Recently, I came across this. It's an article in the magazine Popular Mechanics which contains the transcript of the flight deck recording just prior to the aircraft breaking up and crashing into the sea.

Personally, I think the article is sensationalist and rather unfair. It lays the blame firmly on the most junior of the two FOs at the controls. Admittedly he did react in an incredibly stupid way (pulling the control column up rather than pushing it down) but we all know that humans can behave insanely under extreme stress. As usual, the causes of the accident are many - both pitot tubes freezing at once, Air France failing to train its crews properly on this scenario in the simulator, the extreme weather, and who knows, fatigue may have played a part, too.

What this article does do, though, is remind us that today's aircraft, clever as they are, are not infallible. These pilots felt it was impossible to stall an Airbus, but learned to their cost that it wasn't.

As for that FO in the right hand seat - I can't stop thinking about his family reading this. The poor things. How awful that his final moments are available for all to read - and for all to condemn him, too.

Aviation - the most antiquated career path imaginable

Recently, we've been reflecting on how infuriating the aviation career path is. In what other industry can an employee NOT take their skills and experience and transfer to another company at the same level? Let me elaborate.

My husband has thousands of hours as an FO of a large widebody jet, one of the biggest there is. Great, you'll be thinking, surely he's in demand? Well, yes, but only to people who also fly this said same plane. And that's not the whole story. If he chooses to leave his current airline and move to another one on this same aircraft, he will drop right to the bottom of that airline's "seniority list".

Seniority is everything. In his current company, it can make all the difference with issues as diverse as promotion to the left-hand seat, annual leave bids and whether you get a seat on stand-by or not. In other airlines, it can also affect whether you get the days off and routes you ask for, too.

So, if he decided to move companies, he would be giving up a lot. Really key to all of this is promotion. If he moved, he would go right to the bottom of the list for that, possibly delaying his promotion by as much as 10+ years (in the case of Virgin Atlantic, for example.)

So, simple you think - he just needs to stay where he is and get promoted in a couple of years. Yep, he will do, and he'll earn lots of money doing it. All good so far. The problem then is, however, that entering another airline as a Captain is a rare thing indeed. All major airlines in the UK (BA, Virgin, Monarch, EasyJet etc) don't take direct entry Captains. So if my husband wanted to move home to work (which he'd like to, eventually) he'd be forced to give up his command and start at the bottom again as an FO, for a very paltry salary, or work for a lesser charter airline that might be accepting direct entry Captains.

This particular option is a tricky one, as charters like these are prone to collapse. You could therefore leave a well paid job in the Gulf for a less well paid one in the UK, only to find it disappear completely overnight, something we are of course very familiar with. Aircraft type is also an issue. That particular charter might not want pilots who fly my husband's aircraft, and specifically ask for, say, 737 time, an aircraft he no longer flies. Are you getting how tricky this is?

The other option is contract flying. There are some well paid jobs out there for direct entry Captains on commuting contracts. Still, commuting is a loose term, generally meaning a pilot would only make it home for 2 weeks out of 6 on average. The affect this would have on our family life is a price we don't want to pay.

So, what are we left with? Staying where we are! No matter how many times we discuss this conundrum, that's the only answer we come up with.

At least we have a great family life here, and no money worries to boot. In fact, we're currently negotiating to buy a second investment property in the UK. Every cloud has a silver lining, etc...

Home

Recently, I've been pondering what "home" really means to me. Facebook has a section for "home town", and I haven't put one, because I honestly don't know where my home town is. Is it where I grew up (but left when I was 17?) Is it London, where I lived for 10 years after that? Is it the town in Surrey where we bought our first house together? Or is it, in fact, the city in the Gulf which I now call home?

I've realised I have lots of "homes". Sure, the UK will always be our home country, the place our families are, and there are certainly places there that make us feel "at home." But still - driving back to our villa the other night as the huge, orange sun was just setting, I felt very at home here, too. We've been here nearly three years. We have a great house which is getting ever lovelier as we gradually furnish it, some great friends (amongst some not so great ones - such is life) and our son was born here. My career is really taking off here, too.

In the last couple of weeks, there was a small chance we might have been able to move back to the UK. I surprised myself by feeling very mixed about the chance to move "home."  The UK, as you all know, is in a very bad way financially at the moment. Many of my old colleagues' jobs are at risk. The aviation industry is unstable, and salaries there are low. Tax is 40% (if you're lucky.) Fuelling a car is a frightening experience. Food prices are on the rise. And crucially, I'd have to go back to work full time if we were going to be able to afford a nice house and childcare for our son.

So, as sad as I was when the opportunity was taken away, I was a little relieved, too. This way, I get to work part-time and bring up our boy, pay no tax (not a bean!) on anything I earn, and live in a house we'd have to be millionaires to afford in the UK. And we get home to the UK around four times a year, so it's not as if I never see my family.

I do miss my old friends, though. I crave an evening over wine and crisps with girls who've known me for years.  I've had a few depressing short-term friendships here (a fact of expat life) and it's so shallow. Sometimes, only old friends will do.

Still, one of them told me last night that she's planning a trip out to see me very soon. I'm thrilled.