Day 139 Week 19

Unfortunately yesterday ended on an anxious note. Had heard from fellow soldier's Mum and it transpired her son was attached to the Coldstreams and literally a second later heard that one had been killed. Mercifully it wasn't her boy, but it most definitely was someone's and can only shudder to think how they must now be feeling. And then woke this morning to discover not one but two have perished in the last twenty four hours. May their souls RIP.

Last day of half term and am going for a walk by the river and then to a lovely riverside pub for a bite to eat with a dear friend, and cannot seem to settle to anything. Brain butterflying all over the place. Foot won't stop tapping. Concentration span the length of gnat's. It's tantalising to have the temporary finishing post so near and yet in reality so very, very far, and of course 'temporary' is the defining word here because he has to go back.

Keep holding on to H's advice about being busy and occupying the thoughts productively. My old school motto was 'manu et mente', or 'by hand and by mind', so all these years down the line will try to apply its dictum.

Am going to join a friend and help clear out our local river on Sunday. There's a local legend that it disappears when war is imminent, as it did in the summer of nineteen thirty nine, when the women of the village prayed over the dried up bed for its return. Of course the real reason for its emergence and departure is to do with our local geology of chalk and shifting water tables, but the fact that it has been absent for some months now, is nothing to do with international developments and more to do with its stewardship. Well let's hope that's the case. Am quite excited about donning wellies and scrabbling about the countryside, be like going back to youth and frogspawning by the railway line at home.

Wonder if it's true that the best things in life are free?

See that loads more UFO files have been released into the public domain, maybe my brother wasn't so far off the mark afterall.

Not heard from H. Not heard from R. And not heard from C.

They're never out of my thoughts and prayers though.

Speak soon. A soldier's Mum x