Journey and arrival

It was a long journey on Saturday – check-in was at 7 AM and we finally arrived at Give Kids The World (GKTW) village around 5 PM local time (10 PM Scotland time). Travelling with a child with additional needs means everyone knows who you are and is ready to help and support you at every stage. From the minute we arrived at Glasgow airport right through to final destination, we were well looked after. We were paged at the same time as the flight was called and everyone greeted us by name from then onwards – at the gate, baggage handlers and cabin staff. The Virgin Atlantic crew were absolutely amazing, checking we were all ok throughout the flight, bringing special treats for Anna and Nathan, helping as much as they could with getting Anna to/from the incredibly small airplane toilets, organising a captain’s announcement to the whole plane about Anna’s wish trip and bringing us some of the perks of first class (even though we weren’t sitting there) such as a gorgeous miniature tiered tower of cakes. We met not just the captain but the entire crew!

Anna’s snapdragon wheelchair survived it’s first plane flight with lots of comments from fellow passengers, airport staff and small children (especially boys) about how they’d never seen anything like it before and how cool it was!
The GKTW village is amazing – it’s really hard to describe how welcoming everyone is to Anna (known as ‘the wish child’) and us, her family. However we have already had to address some misconceptions from some of the local volunteers – namely German is not the native language in Scotland, my 21yr old sister Heather is not 28 years old (she was horrified) nor the mother of Anna and Nathan, I am not their grandmother and Mary Poppins is an English nanny character not a disney princess. Other than that, all is well.

The gift fairy comes ever day when we are out and leaves presents for the children. Anna and Nathan both have chosen their pillow of dreams and Anna’s wish star now rests with over 100,000 others on the ceiling in the castle of miracles. Taxis are organised to take us to and from the parks each day and there are activities and events in the mornings and evenings such as character visits, a pool party, Halloween event (tonight) and Christmas celebrations (they try and cover all seasons/annual events as some children may not have the opportunity otherwise). We spent Sunday here just taking it easy after a very long day travelling – both Anna and Nathan are loving swimming- and we are off to the parks tomorrow.

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