New beginnings start here

So, La Child walked out of school today knowing that it was quite possibly the last day she'd ever have to set foot in one. 'How do you feel?' we asked her. 

A shrug of the shoulders. 'Meh,' she replied, 'don't care. Spain tomorrow!'

So much for the tears, the wails and the much gnashing of teeth of everyone else. To be fair to her, leaving this school and not going to another hasn't ever been likely to be an issue for her. Leaving one place for another has never been an issue, whether it's been a case of moving school or house (and we've done plenty of both). La Child isn't someone who finds it hard to tear herself away from things. Well, other than perhaps books. 

So this is it. The start of a whole new journey. An adventure of frighteningly large proportions. To a certain extent there's a cushion, a safety net provided by her age and abilities: if it doesn't work out, then it's easy enough to put her back in the system in a year or two without any real harm to her education, and if anything it'll give her an experience that few children have the chance to enjoy. 

No ties, free from high fees, no longer being restricted to term dates, or a particular area or country... I honestly don't think we've even begun to truly understand the freedom this is likely to give us all, or the opportunities that this is in fact going to give La Child. And I have to say, I am so ridiculously jealous of her.

My last post was all about missed opportunities and, deep down, the weight of expectation. If we achieve nothing else, then I want to ensure that La Child feels no weight whatsoever. Whatever choices she eventually makes, whatever she ends up doing, I want there to be no possibility at all that she may be swayed by what she thinks we want for her. 

I've made a thing, ever since my very first post, of not really knowing what we're going to end up doing, or where we'll end up, but that's only half true. I know where I want to end up. I know what I want to do. I want to fly. I want to make flying my life. I've always wanted to make flying my life, but the weight of expectation has always intruded. When I was 17 it was the hopes and aspiration of my parents that stopped me. I don't mean to say that they would have been anything less than 100% supportive if I had chosen flying over university, they would have been wonderfully supportive, but I knew that deep down they'd be a little bit disappointed and I didn't want them to be. Then when I started working it became an overwhelming feeling that I had to make a go of the law, that I had a career, that I've come so far with it that of course I should continue. Flying could be a hobby, a weekend diversion, it needn't be serious. Then La Child was born and the pressures shifted slightly to a need to support her, to pay the bills and the school fees. A need to give her time, something that a flying career (and the training needed to get there) would prevent me from giving her. 

Now, though... Now life has taken an entirely new path. La Child is no longer at school. La Child is a little bit older, and I can afford to spend some time doing other things. La Child no longer requires an expensive private education, so we've no longer a need to live in an expensive area near an expensive school within commuting distance of a well paying job.... We've been through all this before. Now suddenly the opportunity to finally have a go at actually achieving a long standing dream presents itself. 

There are barriers, of course. I'm older than your average newbie pilot. My eyesight's not the best. I need to sit the exams again and pass flight tests. I need to pass medicals. Houses need to be sold, lifestyles need to change. But today marks the start of what could be the very beginnings of the process, and I have to say I'm really quite excited about it, even if La Child seems entirely nonchalant. 

We're off for a two week break to Spain tomorrow. Time to talk, and plan, and look forward with a ruddy great big smile on all our faces.

Fly me to the moon...

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted; just an earthbound misfit, I

Last Sunday I strapped one of these to my back and, for the first time since 2004, finally (if temporarily) became a little less earthbound.

I ought to warn you that there's a danger that I might come across a little evangelical here. It's hard to explain quite what it feels like for me to leave the ground. The feeling of release and relaxation as soon as the wheels lift up. There's a peace up at 2,000 feet that I've never quite managed to find on the surface. The closest I've come to it is up in a high building, that feeling you get when you look out over a city through heavily insulated glass, surrounded by silence and with a true horizon for your eyes to relax to. A feeling of quiet, of release, of escape. But that's still nothing like being truly free of the earth.

It's almost like a weight being lifted. Breathing is easier. Calm descends. The muscles relax. Whatever problems lurk down there, they can't get to you up here. It's a feeling I've yearned for ever since I can remember - certainly, I'm sure, since I first looked up and saw an aircraft fly overhead.

I can heartily recommend it. Even for those of you who might be a tad phobic about the whole thing, it’s surprising how much more relaxed about flying you become after you’ve tried it in something smaller than a 737. If you’ve only ever seen the world from a tiny little window at row 27, believe me when I tell you that it all looks rather different from the front end.

I don't have a pilot's licence, not yet. I got close, back in 2004. Very very close. Some 60 hours under my belt, 10 of them solo, I'd done the qualifying cross country (during which I got utterly lost, an entire other story), I'd sat and passed five of the required seven written exams. Two more, and the flight test, that's all I needed to get my licence.... and then life got in the way. La Child was born, money became tight, time ever more precious. And I choked. Faced with the possibility of finally achieving a dream I'd held for as long as I could remember, I stepped back inexplicably from the glorious abyss.

Maybe it was a fear that I wasn't quite ready. I'd been flying nearly 10 years on and off, sometimes once a month, sometimes once a week, an hour here, two there. Two hours to get to the airfield, two to get back, a lovely instructor who operated from a portacabin on an unlicensed airfield borrowed from a farmer, sometimes he was there on time, sometimes he wasn't, sometimes we flew, sometimes we spent the afternoon discussing his tea chart. It was relaxed, but chaotic, and took up a lot of time. And while I'd learned enough to be able to get in an aircraft and happily fly it somewhere, there were gaps. I didn't feel at all comfortable taking the test. So there, in the back of my mind, was the seed of my downfall. Yes, money was tight, yes time was precious, but really? I hit a wall I couldn’t get past. I choked.

Of course I've hated myself for it ever since. This isn't just a nice hobby, something I'd like to do, something to tell friends about. Something to get me out of the house at the weekend. Flying is an obsession. Flying is the all. If breathing is my yin, then flying is my yang. So why wait so ridiculously long before doing something about it then? I waited 23 years for my first flight, to wait 8 more until my flight last Sunday was a ridiculous torture, all the more so since it was entirely self inflicted. Partly money, I suppose; flying's an expensive business. Partly fear, what if it doesn't all work out? But all sloth, laziness, lack of oomph. Every day I look up and imagine myself up there. Every day I watch those puddle jumpers pass by and think 'why am I down here?'. Every day I hear the roar of jets overhead as they climb out of Gatwick or descend towards Heathrow and quietly curse the bastards whose office is up at the front end. And yet for 8 years that’s all I did, I just looked up.

I've justified it all these years on the basis that it was the right thing to do; I needed to earn a good wage to put La Child through school, I needed to pay the mortgage, make sure that the cars were taxed, our trips out to nice restaurants protected. Going slightly mad sitting behind my desk watching aircraft bank over the Thames and head into Heathrow or City and knowing I was doing absolutely nothing about it. But even my wife now tells me that getting my licence is something I need to do. And I do. I should have done years ago.

When I was 17 I had a choice. I could go to university, or I could sign up to British Airways’ cadetship scheme: go and live at Heathrow for 18 months, be taught to fly by BA, get a commercial licence and a guaranteed five year contract with BA flying 757s between Heathrow and Edinburgh. Of course you needed to be accepted on to the scheme, but I tell everyone that I would have had no chance; my eyesight would have failed me. That's utter nonsense, of course. I didn't even apply. I chickened out. It wasn't the sensible thing to do. University was sensible. Getting a degree was sensible. Getting a good job in the City earning lots was sensible. I could always satisfy the flying urge afterwards, couldn’t I? My parents didn't force me down the university route, it was always my 'choice', but I knew the rules well enough. Sensible was right, sensible was good, a degree was expected. The alternative would have been supported, but disappointing. So I went and did a law degree, got a good job, rose up through a glorious career, and became a miserable, grumpy sod.

Follow your dreams, kiddies, or it all ends up getting a little bit black and unpleasant.

Time to finish what I started. New life starts here.