After Christmas Day with my family, and Boxing Day with his, we packed and headed off for the start of our next phase.
Upon arrival at our first house-sit, he bowed formally, welcoming me to our new love-nest, something that hadn't happened at his place due to Wing getting me to help her prep it before she'd stuck it to The Pests at the airport. Weasel and family had driven us there from the airport and were looking on wordlessly, though thankfully, nobody had videoed it this time as our TLS videoing was passed now. However, the WhatsApp group was still active despite several members leaving after exiting their relationships at Final Vows. Thankfully, Lindsay and Tony, like us had stayed together and they were planning to visit us after the final filming for their first proper holiday together. Our proper welcome to the house was delayed by them giving us a welcome dinner, but when we finally did, it was long, slow, and very sensual.
My first fortnight was spent with Jo and Angie in the team getting up to speed on Logistics and also flight planning which they also managed. The aim was to start being useful for Rapid should the call go up. I knew I'd never be in the same team as my love as that was the very sensible rule, though we'd be on the same cycle. Being in a different office, it was kisses goodbye at the start of the day and reuniting ones at the end. We rarely had lunch together as we wanted the day finished so we could go home and attend to UK work, though Adrienne made it clear that she didn't expect much from me in the beginning. The weather was like in Patagonia, and we ran in the same clothing which required the same joint effort to robe and disrobe, not that we minded! We sometimes mused that The Experts and some couples would be shocked at how we behaved alone, but that was for us to do and them to make blind guesses about.
Weasel and Dog had us for dinner regularly. It was somewhat weird having dinner with your boss as Angie and family would be there too. Weasel had long been like a sister to my love, and from our first call and then chat, she'd rapidly become likewise to me. The time at their place was good for me to have female company. Sometimes she or David would drop sly, approving comments about us, letting us know she could read us without asking anything. As he lives central, we invariably ended up Downtown or close by with Dog, including an amazing Cantonese Hot Pot place on Eighth near the Convention Centre. He was a big brother to us, rougher than Weasel, but mostly his Pete side was up: wise, thoughtful, and sometimes very reflective.
We had offers of Krakens (NHL) tickets and my love had shown up a different side here as he admitted to being a [Calgary] Flames fan or failing that, the [Vancouver] Canucks, and we availed ourselves of tickets. Dog had advised that if we were flexible, we could get cheap seaplane seats when there were empties, which we availed several times when the Canucks were at home, resulting in an early morning return as the sun rose over the Harbour and then made for a romantic sunrise flight home. At one match, he suggested I should get a Sens [Ottawa] jumper "Cen by name, Sen by fan?" he had asked eliciting a playful public kiss, not that much cause was needed for that.
The Bizjet (GA) community at the adjacent airfield was sizeable, varied, and tight. Nest part-owns the Fixed Base (Air Services) and does much of the management, meaning I quickly got to know some of the crowd. There was a semi-formal back-scratch system where people would offer up spare seats in return for some future favour. Flight planning was something that I would never have considered exploring, but it piqued my curiosity and Andy and Angie helped me start down this road. Where my career would go, I now didn't know: Nest or Adrienne, HR or something else: I was just riding the adventure.
My love was busy with his project work which took him away overnight several times, again giving us space to be alone at night and breakfast, missing and valuing our time together. Worse for him, was Twerp, as I called his UK boss, was being pissy again, so my love was working [our] night hours more than he wanted, though my work for Adrienne was more sensible. We tried to do our UK work either late [our] night so we could sleep after or early mornings, then start Nest work or go for a run in the cold, hoping for a mid-run sunrise kiss. What free time we had, we spent exploring the city, Bremerton, and several overnighters in Victoria and its surrounds which he and now I loved, though we knew that after our return for filming, we would ensure a few more quiet nights in, just idly on the sofa watching and making out in front of the TV, though we still got plenty of that!
TLS had agreed to pay for our flights home for the Catchup episode and we planned to be home for a week: two days for the filming then spending time together with our families. We were discussing future plans at the end of our next stint: Angie had told me that my time in her team was open-ended, and we'd been offered several six-month house-sits which we were seriously thinking about. Longer-term, we were unsure: Vancouver looked very appealing for us with its proximity to Nest and it seemed a nicer city too, but so did Australia and NZ as we could easily get roles and work visas if we wanted. "Our love nest is where we lay our heads together," Andy had noted as our lips connected again.
The week before our flight back, Andy and several of his team were due down at Mojave again. This time it was decided that Emma and I needed to get familiar with the site too and, as it coincided with Vandenberg's monthly open day the following Tuesday, we agreed to go down Sunday, but Andy and I would drive back to San Fran and fly back to Seattle after instead of returning on the Falcon.
We all boarded Atara for the flight down. This wasn't the Silver Service that I knew was the norm for BizJets: here, the rule was that the newbies provided the time-appropriate food, and I made some scones for morning tea. He volunteered to be Crew and made the coffee in the onboard galley: this was very tasty Hummingbird that his Kiwi colleague had brought six packs over on her last trip along with six bars of tasty Whittaker's chocolate. The flight was short, but I got to sit in the cockpit which was interesting, and I got to see the flight plan that I'd helped write in action which was good.
He de-planed first and playfully lifted me off the steps onto the desert runway as I descended, causing me to wrap my arms around him as he sat me down which was fun and romantic, albeit not really with colleagues around, so I just kissed his cheek, and I felt his hands on my back which is always a good sensation. The view was stunning: wide open desert, surrounded by high snowcaps. The runway had hangars down one side and the Boneyard on the other side, though I was reminded of his call from here when he'd landed in the GX and I hugged him tighter, feeling our breathing unite again. "We're here together. Love you so much," he said, holding me tighter and now kissing me gently on the lips as we saw the rest of our colleagues head into the hangar.
