Day 21 Week 3

Dreadful night's sleep last night. Tortured, disturbed, fragmented dreams and when a friend rang me this morning I just jumped (well limped) straight out of bed and into the bath, as if that might wash it all away. Lay in the water with my hair swirling around wondering why my emotions vere so dramatically. Sometimes am utterly positive and confident all will be well and then crash, bang out of the blue am paralysed with anxiety. I suppose that's what it must be like being a soldier - long periods of boredom interrupted with frenzied action and then back to boredom again. At least the bleak damp weather suites the mood.

It is so strange that H, C and R have no sense of danger because I am one of the most cautious people on God's earth. From when they were very small I could always see hazards and possible catastrophes that were pitfalls just waiting to happen. I was forever telling them to get down off high and unstable structures, not to swim in unfamiliar waters, not to be blase with equipment; they must be the only children who at the age of five knew how to take up the prone position if they were in imminent danger of lightning strike. It's a miracle I wasn't investigated for Munchausen's syndrome because I was never away from Casualty with the boys - the list of broken bones and stitches was extensive. But what all that fear seemed to generate was exactly the opposite reaction - R was thirteen when she absailed down a 250ft cliff face.

By all accounts a grand day was had in Liverpool, haven't heard from H yet but the BBC website said the fly-past was magnificent.

My mother, who was an extremely complicated but wise lady always used to say 'laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone'. Roughly translated I guess it means nobody likes a moaner and as am definitely more blue than pink today will keep my gloominess to myself and wish all around a happy safe day.

Speak soon. A soldier's Mum x