Tales of the unexpected

It’s been quite a journey, writing a craft book - a hilly, exhilerating, exhausting hike of a journey. With a scatter of rocky patches. 

The last couple of weeks have been full on: weighty time pressure - the book’s released in August, but I hadn’t fully appreciated that it actually goes to print months before. Like now.  

So, lots of early mornings and late nights. Lots of deep breathing. Everything else pushed to the sidelines - I’ve still had to do all the stuff in the sidelines, I just haven’t done it particularly well. 
You know when you’re driving, and you get to where you’re going and can’t really remember how you got there? I’ve had quite a few school runs like that. Head lost in a cloud of cardboard cut-outs. But I’m out the other side now; nothing more to do apart from trust and pray everything’s okay. I’ve been willing this time to come, and now it’s here I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.

Working flat out has had its advantages though - it’s stopped me thinking about the other major bit of news - that my husband is going off on tour again. And there was me, thinking the last one was the last one. Should have known better. Army life never pans out the way you think. 
So, now my priorities have to change. I’ve got to find ways to simplify things; take some of the pressure off - stay sane basically. 
They’re good kids, our three, but I haven’t found that older means easier. Certainly not when you’re on your own. Yes, they’re more independent and able to do things for themselves, (if they can be bothered), but they can also be argumentative, grumpy, lazy and difficult. Challenging in a word. And challenging is hard when you’re tired and there’s no one to share with. We’re all used to him being away during the week, but weekends are a bit of a game-changer. 

Anyway, not the best time ever to start a kids craft blog. Not just because of impending changes at home, but also because I don’t want to go near another egg box for a while... I’ve got a few things made already, but I’m half-minded to put them on here; to reorganise this blog and stick to what I know. Doesn’t feel like the right moment to start something new.
Keep things simple. Make space. Deep breaths.

Revisiting Day 115: Two Minute Silence

I can hardly believe it's almost a year since my husband came home. The time's gone so fast - a hell of a lot faster than the year he was away…funny enough.

The 18th November: that was the day. Especially significant somehow, being so close to Remembrance Day. 
The countdown seemed to go on and on and ON, and then, there he was, standing outside the door, as if it was the most normal thing ever. Exhausted; thin; with a few more grey hairs. Such an unforgettable moment. 
Such a wave of joy and relief.

I've been looking back over a few of the posts I wrote during his Afghan tour. Some still choke me up; not because of the words, but because I remember how I felt at that time. Emotional. Tired. Holding on.

This poem is from roughly a third of the way through the year. I'd seen a notice in a local shop window about plans to hold a 2 minute silence for 6 young soldiers killed in Afghanistan. The meeting place was by a bus stop in the middle of the village, so I took the kids along. 
Apologies if you've read it before, but with Remembrance Day coming up, thought it was worth revisiting.  
Lest We Forget.

Day 115 - Two Minute Silence

We join a line at a bus stop

No ordinary queue.

A small gathering of strangers,

all here for the same reason;

to remember six young men 

none of us knew,

killed in a place we can't imagine.

Their pictures pinned to the shelter wall;

smiling, confident, brave.

A quick snapshot

that every soldier knows

might be his last.

The one we see when they are gone.

Two minutes of silence,

Two minutes for them.

I steal a glance at my eldest,

head bowed, just nine;

Half the life 

of the youngest soldier.

I think of the family's grief and pain,

the sadness that must weigh them down

and engulf everything.

 I think of the impossible road ahead;

the gaps that will never close.

And I pray in these darkest hours

there's some comfort in knowing 

they died with friends,

doing a job they loved.

However hard to understand.

The church bell breaks the silence;

time moves on again.

The kids walk slowly to the car,
my thoughts caught in a distant place

as they count the days till daddy's home.

Linking up with Victoria's 'Prose for Thought'

Day 355 - Kabul calling

Sometimes when I'm babbling away on the phone to my husband about the kids, bills, or the retired vicar popping by when I was in my pyjamas; it's very easy to forget he's far away, doing what he's doing. I've seen the odd photo, but I can't really picture where he is, or imagine what his days are like. The gulf between his world and mine is so vast. The more I think about it, the bigger the gulf gets. I know my husband works seven days a week, that his job takes up every waking minute, and I'm often amazed by how he seems to able to switch out of all of that on the phone to me.  I couldn't do it.

Over the year he's managed to phone home every two or three days, which is pretty good. Much better than the last 6 month tour 3 years ago, when calls were erratic. I remember not hearing from him for 10 days during the toughest, darkest part of that tour. Afghanistan dominated the news then, fighting was intense and there was so much sadness. It was the longest 10 days of my life.

It's been very different this time - he's not on the frontline and I haven't worried as much between calls. But I never ask when he's going out. I'd rather not know.

Our phone chats haven't always gone smoothly though - he has a  knack of ringing at a really bad moment - when I'm trying to get the kids to do their homework, eat, or I'm just about to head out the door. There's never a perfect time is there.

I always feel guilty after one of these distracted calls, and I can't ring him back - I have to wait for him to ring me, or email him to call home. We rarely talk at night because Afghanistan is a few hours ahead. If he wants to catch up with the kids, it tends to be breakfast time, which is bedlam, or early teatime/bathtime (even worse!) Weekends are usually best.

I know the kids have missed their dad desperately and are so excited about him coming home - but they can be totally useless on the phone, especially if there's something else going on. He's pretty realistic about this, but it must be hard.

That's why once in a while I've asked the kids to write or make things to send to him. The eldest usually writes a letter, the youngest draws a picture and the one in the middle does a bit of both.

I often get a lump in my throat when the kids show me what they've done. So heartfelt, loving and honest. And I know getting messages like this have meant the world to their dad over the last 12 months.

Day 352 - Mobile memories

We're very nearly there. My husband's home this month! THIS MONTH! Can't tell you how great it feels to write that. I'd almost do a jig if I wasn't so blinking tired...just a few more weeks...

The last bit is tough though - time starts crawling by - still, I've allowed the final countdown to begin in my head, and I'm on a kind of manic mission to get the house sorted and things finished before he's back. This usually happens, and as I've already said it's completely bonkers, because he's not going to be remotely bothered about how the house looks. He just wants to be home. But I think it helps me somehow.

Not everything has gone to plan. I won't be meeting him at the door, wrapped in a crocheted blanket of many colours, as I'd optimistically thought way back when, before granny squares got the better of me.  According to my little counter I've almost enough for a blanket, but sewing them together could take another year...

During a kitchen drawer clear out (because he's really going to be looking through the drawers..) I found a box of fish. They're made from copper wire someone gave me a while ago. I bent it with pliers into a simple shape, then threaded beads and shells onto very thin wire, and wrapped this around each one.

I've always had a thing about fish. Not exactly sure why, but there's something comforting about them.  I have shoals of all shapes and sizes, on curtains, cushions, pictures, tiles - you could easily play spot the fish in any room here.
Over the years I've worked them into many things I've made too, and that's really what I'm getting at in a roundabout way. The last time my husband was on tour in Afghanistan I made a large mosaic fish mirror, and it is important to me - packed with memories and emotion. Making something out of the wire fish is similar really. A reminder of the year - the ups and downs, but I hope mostly the positive things that have come out of these 12 months on my own.

I knew I had a bag of lovely bleached, smooth pieces of driftwood gathered on a beach trip, so a mobile seemed like a good option.

Getting the balance right was tricky, but attaching it to a hanger on a curtain pole meant I could fiddle about with the dangling fish, and get them hanging properly.
Now they're swimming around in the bathroom, and mobiles have been added to my list of things that are seriously hard to photograph..

Will he notice? Maybe not. 

But it'll always mean something to me.

Day 199 - Home again, home again....

Jiggety jig. Always a bit of a trek to get back: long queues at the flight check-in, and at security, and then I had to queue again with all the other forgetful eejits waiting to have bags re-checked, because I'd left a tube of UHU glue in my hand luggage.

But it has been a half-term and a half. 

I do feel tired, but definitely not down.

It was so good having him back with us for three days.  I know it meant such a lot to his mum as well, and she really seems to be on mend now.

The time flew by: it was a bit of a whirlwind, but a very uplifting one. Even the unrelenting rain and grey gloom couldn't change that.

I didn't allow myself to feel too sad when he left - as I've said before, it was an unexpected bonus, and the kids have also just picked up where they left off.

His fleeting visit already feels like a bit of a dream, but one that's left me feeling quite focussed on the next few months which I'm happy about, because I know I've let things slip.

I am very good at starting stuff, and not so hot at seeing it through. Exercise is a perfect example: the kettle bell workouts I was doing a few times a week have dwindled to a big fat zero and slinked down the side of my blog; I haven't been running for ages; and after six months my 'comfort eating' excuse is wearing thin.

Being away from home for a spell does help to concentrate the mind though - or maybe it was spending time with my two slim, fit younger sisters who are both studying to be personal trainers. Yes, BOTH of them, can you believe it? Part of me feels inspired, the other part wants to hide in a corner with a bag of Doritos.

Anyway I had a good long think about it all on the way back home and I am going to take a leaf out of their book and try harder. I have some extra motivation to get into better shape too, because I've decided  to take the kids to France in the summer holidays, and quite honestly I don't want to feel like a flump when I'm there.

Time to put the batteries back in the bathroom scales.

Day 170 - Pushing my luck?

My husband found this in the garage when he got back from his last 6 month tour of Afghanistan...

"SURPRISE!" I said. And he was.

You see my husband had never shown the slightest flicker of interest in owning a camper. But I'd managed to convince myself that he just didn't know he wanted one. And as he stood there, struggling for words, I knew it was going to be ok: the cards were stacked in my favour - I had just looked after the children for 6 months; he was hardly going to turn round and say, 'take it back'.

Anyway I couldn't, because I'd bought it on ebay.

All things considered, he took the news pretty well.

Looking back on it, it was a bit mad - but coming up to the end of a tour, you experience such an overwhelming mixture of relief, tiredness and elation: it's a giddy combination.....

So an absolutely perfect time to do something rash.

And in my head I had this lovely romantic picture of family camping trips, based I'm sure on childhood memories. We always had a camper. I'd learnt to drive in an orange and white VW.

I did check out the old VW's first, but they were very expensive, even in poor condition. When I saw our Toyota camper-to-be, she had a VW look without the price tag, AND she slept five. So I packed the kids into the car and we headed off to Mold in Cheshire to take a look.

It was a lot further away than I thought.

She did look lovely though, but as her owner ran through the essentials, I felt a wave of panic, because it suddenly struck me just how little I knew about campers (or anything with an engine) and I wasn't sure what to ask or what to look for.

Obviously this sensible moment of doubt had vanished by the time we got home, so based on some rather sketchy advice from my mum's partner ('She's a steal! Toyota's go forever!') I placed my bid, waited nervously, and won.

I did some tinkering before my husband saw her. New curtains - the first and only ones I've ever made, and I recovered the tatty old seats with A LOT of help from a friend.

We have been lucky with Betty, as she came to be called. It could have been a disaster. If I was ever to do anything like this again, I'd take someone with me who knew what they were talking about.

She is over thirty years old and needs to be handled with care. Flat, straight roads are fine - sometimes we reach heady speeds of around 50mph - but Betty hates hills.

Unfortunately we live at the top of a very steep one. She usually screeches up it in second gear with everyone shouting and willing her on (and praying there isn't anything coming the other way)

So it probably won't come as much of a surprise to hear we don't stray far in Betty. Having said that, we live right on the south Wales border, and there's no shortage of beautiful places to explore.

My husband has learnt to love her. I think. And we both like the way the pace of life seems to slow down as we trundle along. Sometimes you need to go slow to appreciate what you've got.

We have had a good laugh about the Betty-buying-episode over the last two years.

And now, here we are again.

Except this time he's gone away for TWELVE months....and I've got a few ideas....