2001 started off much the same as our previous 3 years in Trinidad with the exception that we knew this would be our last year there, and so we tried to make sure we experienced everything one last time. Meghan, who was spending her second school year at Appleby College (Ontario) as a boarding student, came back down to the Caribbean to spend Christmas with us. On New Year’s Eve we partied with friends and lit fireworks, but our lives quickly slipped into Carnival mode as always happens in Trinidad. We did the usual ‘panyard crawls’ (touring the steel bands as they practiced for Panorama competition) and attended ‘fetes’ (where all the Soca and Calypso bands introduce their new songs), and celebrated both Fancy Mas (Mardi Gras) and J’ouvert (‘dirty’ or night mas). Our costumes were much nicer this year than last and were actually ready before Carnival. Immediately following Carnival, Bruce’s aunt Iris and cousin Karl came to stay with us, having won return air tickets in the Trinidad Canadian Woman’s Club Thanksgiving raffle. They immediately got into the spirit of Trinidad, learning to drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, finding their way around town and discovering things faster than even we had. After a brief acclimation, Wendy and Bruce headed for vacation to South America, leaving them to look after Curran. We spent 3 weeks in Chile and Argentina, exploring at our own speed and visiting friends along the way. Prior to this trip Bruce and Wendy had been to Venezuela and Brazil (Bruce had earlier visited Colombia and Peru), but this was the farthest south either of us had been in South America. We had a fabulous time in both countries, which were surprisingly quite different from one another, and especially enjoyed the “Cruce de Logos” land and lake crossing of the Andes Mountains between the two. Wendy continued to function as Welfare Officer for the Canadian Women’s Club in Trinidad, as well as fulfilling other social work commitments she had made for herself. One of these was arranging for the transfer of 100 wheelchairs and geriatric chairs from a donor healthcare organization in Madison, Wisconsin, which arrived in Trinidad after more than a year of frustration and setbacks. After they had undergone necessary maintenance and repairs, Wendy distributed the chairs to the needy in Trinidad. Bruce continued to work for BP, but also volunteered his time as treasurer for the Trinidad Geological Society, led the geological field trip for Curran’s grade 8 class, and ran the POS Couple’s Darts League for the third consecutive year. A year-end wrap up in May saw all 64 members and 16 guests challenge one another in a tournament where Wendy took the Women’s Single prize and we also took the Couples prize. With his Trinidad work permit expiring in August, Bruce started to look for possible job opportunities within BP. He took advantage of a training course in the UK to meet some of BP’s International Team Leaders in the Sunbury (west London) office in which he was interested in a final 4-year posting, but he also looked at job opportunities at BP Canada. Unfortunately all the remaining interesting postings appeared to be in remote parts of the world, and we needed to locate somewhere near a good school to allow the kids to graduate in 2 and 4 years. A false alarm in July found Bruce back in Sunbury for a job interview, with the family joining him to look at schools and houses, and we took it hard when the job fell through after a few days. Bruce decided to take early retirement. We returned to Trinidad, quickly packed up our house, and arrived in Calgary just in time to find a furnished flat, get the kids into their schools and buy a car. Bruce was supposed to return to Trinidad for a couple of weeks in September to complete his project and have a retirement/going away party, but the tragic events in New York on Sept. 11 put a hold on all company air travel (he couldn’t believe that BP didn’t consider his retirement ‘essential travel’!). Like all of us, we spent a month working through the stages of shock, fear, grief and anger as we began to realize the significance of the changes this was going to make in the world as we know it. In late October Bruce moved to the UK to spend time working on securing his BP pension. He has been staying with friends and relatives, sleeping in late, drinking ale with his fish and chips, and generally enjoying his retirement. Wendy, on the other hand, has stayed in Calgary to look after the kids and is finding repatriation frustrating as is always the case, and resents Bruce having so much fun. As expected, the kids continue to grow up and go through the various stages and problems associated with adolescence. We are proud of how Meghan did at boarding school over the past 2 years, turning into a mature, self-motivated young lady with an ability to dig into her homework without being prodded. She seems to be enjoying Western High School in Calgary and is still busy in the school band, but she is also now into horseback riding and kick-boxing. Both kids will learn to ski (and possibly ice skate) this winter. Curran, who has always done well at school (promoted from 6th to 8th Grade last year in an attempt to compensate for the lack of challenge from which he suffered), is having trouble adjusting to Calgary but we suspect that it’s more a result of his going through puberty and a major growth spurt; he is now over 5’9” tall and wears size 13 shoes. He will be at least as tall as Bruce. Back in Canada, he will miss the scuba diving and Latin dancing that he enjoyed in Trinidad, but is enjoying bowling and tennis, and will hopefully stay with the Boy Scouts. His science fair project last year, which involved baking many loaves of bread, appears to have awakened an interest in cooking. We are all together for Christmas this year in England, spending this past week in London where we saw Lord of the Rings on opening night, and caught a couple of plays in the West End. We will celebrate Christmas with Bruce’s cousin Chris and family in Blackpool, and see Miss Saigon again in Manchester. We hope that you all will similarly have a good Christmas holiday and continue to stay in touch in the New Year. Christmas Greetings and Best Wishes from our house to yours. Please remember that our mailing address is PO Box 455, Suite 100, 1039 17th Ave. SW, Calgary, Canada  T2T-0B2. Our family e-mail (Calgary) is now  bweggertson@shaw.ca Wendy’s e-mail (Calgary) continues to be wendy@eggertson.com /  1-403-802-0620 Bruce’s e-mail (England) continues to be bruce@eggertson.com   /   011-44-9700-121270.

SEASON'S GREETINGS 2001