What wild and thrilling adventures have been happening here recently? Hmmm, well, I bought some new trainers. Yeah, I know, living the dream and all that. But for a woman who only makes it off camp for one of three reasons:
(1. taking Son to school
2. medical appointments with kids
3. trudging round Lidl looking for cheap nappies)
then making it as far as a non-food shop in a neighbouring town was quite a rare treat.
Although obviously it had to be fitted in after Son's swimming lesson and before the Twins woke up from their afternoon sleep.
So it was hardly a leisurely spot of retail therapy. In fact, as I had Son with me, it was more of a disorganised stumble from car to till and back again.
Now, I love my son, and I'm always being told how lovely he is (which he is), but he is still a boy, and after his swimming lessons he is a tired boy, with the concentration span of a small flea, and a similar propensity to jump around randomly. Whilst I was discussing with the sales assistant the benefits of Saucony over Asics and which was better suited to a neutral running style, Son managed to knock over a bike in the window display. I apologised and everyone was very nice about it.
We continued our discussion about trainers when I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Son lying on his back, with his head underneath the changing room curtain, so as to have a good look at whoever was inside. Of course I immediately demanded he came out, apologised profusely to the sales assistant yet again and suggested to Son that he also apologise to whoever was in the changing cubicle.
I of course meant that he should just say sorry from outside. But no, quick as a flash (he is eager to please) he lay on is back again, wriggled his head back under the curtain and yelled 'sorry' to the poor customer inside. After which I felt obliged just to buy something and skedaddle asap. Which meant I have ended up with really quite expensive running shoes. And they are pink. Twins love them but Son thinks they are yeauch, and I secretly agree. Tried them out on Sunday and they don't make me go any faster either.
So after that flirtation with the delights of shopping, I may just stick to the school-doctor-Lidl routine in future. Safer and cheaper and way, way less embarrassing.

Blimey, it has been a bit too long since I last wrote (nearly said 'my last confession' there, and come to think about it there is just the whiff of a confessional about this blog. After all, haven't mentioned reciprocation issues or hostessing phobia to anyone else in the street).
In between then and now, have had two visits to the doctors for to get us all vaccinated. Wierdly, my poor deprived children think that going to the med centre is some kind of treat, and skip in shouting, "Yay, injections!" - hope it is merely to do with the fact they all get to share a minute bag of cola bottles afterwards (woo hoo) and not because they have latent S&M tendencies.
We have also had a family visit to the dentist, which was greeted with similar joyful whooping, even though they get apples afterwards - don't want to give the dentist the wrong impression: "oh, yes, they only have apples and cheese for treats, not sweets, ever, Mr Dentist!".
More vaccinations to come on Friday and Monday - they will be veritable pin cushions by the time we leave.
Also twins had a very pink and sticky birthday at the weekend. Now they are officially 'big girls', several people decided it was time they had Barbie dolls. There is no escape now. The house will be full of anatomically incorrect peach plastic laydeez for the next seven years or so. Scary. Some of them even have wings attached, which is just odd. I don't mean to be ungrateful, because obviously the girls love them, but really, am half hoping they get lost in the move...
Grumpy Hector is not at home this week. As a result it is already past nine o'clock and the breakfast dishes are still lying unwashed in the sink. Not good. As he says, he has his uses.
I haven't really recovered from book club, which was far from being a drunken hooly, but nevertheless was a late night, and then I went and did a 10-mile run the following morning, and last night when I should really have been doing some housework I watched a programme on Heather Mills, so I am left with the legacy of being knackered and disorganised. Although I do know a lot more about the Geordie gold-digger, and I'm hoping this will stand me in good stead for the celebrity gossip quiz, which has been organised in lieu of the next book club - it seems that people were getting a bit bored of book club as it involved, erm, reading and discussing books. So now it's being rebranded as 'the-drinking-and-gossip-event-formerly-known-as-book-club'. Shame. I feel like the class swot, but I really did want everyone to read my book club choice for the next session, which is 'Two Caravans' (by the same woman who wrote 'a short history of tractors in the ukraine), as it's fab and funny and intelligent all at the same time. Ah well. I suppose I'll have to go back to reading 'Now' again, so I can hold an opinion on whether or not Posh has had a tummy tuck, or some similarly fascinating topic.
Anyway very sensibly tonight I am going to ban telly (unless there is another celebrity secrets programme, in which case I will have to watch it so I don't come last in the quiz), and not allow myself any gin or chocolate raisins until I have tidied the blooming kitchen.
Well, maybe just a small G&T to get me in the mood for drudgery...

Feel a little coy about sharing the most, erm, intimate aspects of being an army wife with you, but anyway...

Last night, in the marital bed (mattress on the floor), Hubby nestled towards me and gently cupped my left breast with his manly hand. Mmm, that's nice, I mumbled drowsily.
Listen, pal, he replied, somewhat testily, don't think you can just lie there and enjoy it, this will have to be reciprocated in a bit.

Do you think that somehow, somewhere, after ten years of marriage, that little burning spark of romance might have been starved of oxygen?
Ah well.

Anyway, he is away next week, and will miss me and regret his irascibility (I'm not sure if this is the right word but it sounds good to me).

I have scheduled book club at my house whilst he is away - he cannot tolerate the 'witches of book club' whilst he's in residence, which I'm hoping will be a night of wine, chocolate and some passing references to the Time Traveller's Wife (which I read five years ago and can barely remember except that it made me cry at the end. After several glasses of wine I will probably cry again merely at the memory and bang on about how beautiful it is and then swoon into bed sending nostaligic and loving texts to Hubby, forgetting all about the whole reciprocation issue and just remembering how much I adore him. He will receive these texts in the middle of the night, fast asleep in preparation for a hard day's work on his very important course the next day, and will be irritated to be woken up. So somehow the ends will all tie up, I will, in vino veritas, remember how much I really do love him, but by waking him up to tell him, I will also have exacted some rather delicious revenge. Sounds like a plan to me!).

The only worry about hosting book club is my phobia of entertaining and my serious lack of stuff. I am having to ask people to brink their own wine glasses (why oh why didn't we have a proper white wedding so we could stock up on things like wine glasses and fondu sets?). People have been laughing when I say bring a bottle and your own wine glass, but I am deadly serious as we own a grand total of three wine glasses. So book club may all end up drinking out of plastic winnie the pooh beakers and chipped coffee mugs, and then my status as slum dweller in the community will be well and truly sealed.

I feel pants. Think I have a crop of stinging nettles growing in my throat, glue in my nose and itching powder inside my ears. I know, I know, it's 'just' a cold, but it feels horrible.
Anyway, wanted to tell you about the people across the road. They are quitet important - well, he is - and she thinks they should be in a far better house. As she is already in a four-bedroomed detatched one with a garage, I'm not entirely sure what she's after, but anyway, she has apparently been ear-bashing anyone who will listen about the dire standard of accommodation in this street (she hasn't said anything of the sort to me, so this is entirely third-hand gossip and rumour of course - but then again, it may also be true).
I understand it's the lack of en suite facilities in the master bedroom, which has really got her goat.
Because they are quite important -well, he is - that they are entitled to have a cleaner. And I suppose it must be upsetting that the cleaner doesn't have enough to do, what with there only being four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, a study, a living room and a kitchen to clean every day...
However, I have some sympathy, as pretty much from the moment they moved in, the rest of us have behaved like total pikeys. They left loads of old furniture, etc. outside when they moved in (as it wouldn't fit in), and the rest of the street gloried in rootling through it and appropriating for themselves before the refuse collection got here. So maybe she has a point.
And let's face it, she is living across the street from us, which probably lowers the tone, what with the random snotty children escaping periodically and the depressive dog trying to get himself run over.
I've heard that she's planning to catch the ear of some even-more-important general at a function this weekend. I do hope he listens (I'm sure he'll have nothing else important to think about) and they are able to move into something more suitable jolly soon.

Chipping Norton

Thought I'd just write a couple of lines as Hubby is busy watching telly. Amazingly it's not Top Gear. It's Dad's Army (which I think comes a close second in his favourite TV programmes, along with the Secret Passions of Girls Aloud).
Anyway, so I have a couple of free minutes to tell you about my escape from camp this week to the exotic delights of Chipping Norton. Met up with a couple of old friends from uni, who live all over the place, so we tried to find somewhere central to meet up, which turned out to be Chipping Norton (which is where Jeremy Clarkson lives - although we didn't actually see him as he was probably zooming about in some million pound motor and doing gravelly pieces to camera, whilst we were just sitting in a pub and giggling about the time we drew a moustache in permanent pen on the picture of the Queen hanging in the Halls of residence dining room, for example. Of course, that's just an example, as an officer's wife would never have an incident as heinous as that lurking in her republican past...).
Chipping Norton was lovely. Straight out of a Richard Curtis movie: full of middle-class people buying books and saying 'fuck' in an endearingly bewildered way. It was of course fab to see my lovely friends, who haven't changed a jot - well, one of them has gained silicone boobs, but other than that they are the same (I was desperate to poke them and see what they felt like - the boobs, not the friends - but it would have been somewhat unseemly to do that in a bookshop in Chipping Norton).
They made me feel a little bit of an under-acheiver though (the friends, not the boobs - although come to think of it the boobs did as well), as they both have good jobs and earn real money, where as I languish under the title 'homemaker' (although as you all know I am about to receive an award for these!). I would like to think that one day my children will thank me for being a stay at home mum, and always being there for them, but sadly I think they will just remember me as the evil shouty one who made all the stupid rules.
Anyway, must go as have as usual a very large basket of ironing calling me from the other room.

did you spot the april fool? i thought it was quite subtle and cunningly hidden...

Incidentally, I have just been nominated for the Most Homely Housewife in Britain Award. The nominator said they especially liked my cupcakes and my floral print antimacassars and the way my house was always spotless and smells of freshly baked bread and rose petals. How chuffed am I? It's an honour just to be nominated but of course I would really like to win - I think homemaking is such an important skill. Can't wait to talk about the award at my next dinner party...

Well the tension and excitement (actually just tension) is mounting as we prepare to move the entire family (except the dog, who is off to live in a nice big house in Wales with a couple of laydeez and no toddlers to poke him in the eye or steal his food. I suspect he is quite happy about the prospect, but it's hard to tell as he has his usual just-short-of-suicidal expression on) to Nepal. There seem to be an awful lot of irritating forms to fill in, you know, the sort that state huffily at the outset that you need to write in black ink and block capitals and ask for the same information about a million times over. And I know that no matter how hard I try - despite being infuriated with the niggling fussiness of it all - to do my best and neatest, I will inevitably lose concentration and mess up and have to deal with visa forms being returned and we will miss our flights and it will be a total disaster.
Hmm, perhaps I'm not being quite as can-do and optimistic about this as I should be. Just wish someone could do all the boring bits for me.
I just want to be transported swiftly and painlessly to the land of stunning scenery and cheap pashminas (oh, yes, and rioting and earthquakes, but we'll gloss over that) without actually having to do any personal admin whatsoever. Is that really too much to ask?