Day 83 Week 11

Christmas Day.

Remember last year coming downstairs at six in the morning to find both boys sitting up, spark asleep on the sofa, side by side, with the laptop on their knees. They'd decided to watch a film when they came in from the pub but didn't have the stamina or sobriety to stay the course, and so it was at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day I made cranberry and bread sauce accompanied by carols and two snoring boys.

Obviously things are different this year.

R and H asleep upstairs and I'm listening to the service from Chester Cathedral and there's a gaping hole in our family. With the Grace of God it will prove to be a temporary chasm but it is still enormous in its volume. The love and prayers that we are collectively sending invisibly through the ether around the world are immeasurable.

Please God bless everyone and keep them safe from harm.

H and R having lunch with their father and I was overwhelmed by offers from family to stay wth them, but I felt I couldn't leave the house today. And so my dear friend has kindly invited me to their home and it will be delicious food combined with gentle conversation, and then back to the familial nest in the evening. Hopefully it will be a very quiet and uneventful day and then it will be business as usual.

H and R just explaining why only part of my present can be wrapped (at this very moment- in paper that I actually bought myself) because the other half isn't yet available. Oh and I've just had to give them my selotape and scissors too. Well at least it made me laugh.

Speaking to family on the phone just now and I'm handing the blog over to H and R to post messages to C.

C! H here, the annual christmas eve night out wasn't the same without you, everyone said so and we toasted you and your lads at midnight. Just gave mum her presents from ALL of us, she says thanks. Any way, we all miss you and I'm already planning the social for you return. Lots of love, H.

Happy christmas C! Not really feeling that great today as i clearly am paying for the annual winkers session last night, which as H already said, wasnt the same without you. You were very missed as you are today, but ill eat twice as much to make up for your absence! Love you so much and miss you more, R x

Speak soon. A soldier's Mum x