I have spent almost a week now trying to write this post under the title 'Life As A Wife Of'. In the end I have given up. I think part of the problem was that if I wrote a post under that title I would be, in a way, speaking for other wives who happen to be married to someone who is in the British army, knowing a fair few of them now I can safely say that I would be shot down very swiftly! We wives are all different, our experiences are different and our views vary wildly. From what I have seen and read, some wives choose to go into full-on, flat-out army wife mode, others make their point loud and clear that, although they may be married to a man in the army, they are in no way, shape or form a part of the army.
Keeping all of the above in mind this post is purely about my life. I believe - hope! - that I have managed to keep to the middle ground, I am ridiculously proud of my husband and what he does for a living and I am determined to be an asset to him not a hindrance, and yes, even in 2011 an army wife can have a positive or a negative effect on her husband's career, admittedly that fact is now whispered, but it does not stop it being true.
It seems that the majority of my time is either spent waiting in for the latest Modern Housing Solutions (MHS) guy to arrive to fix something, generally the heating - I have had them out 6 times so far and it still isn't working! - talking to the Welfare guys about various bits and pieces or walking/playing with the dogs, talking of which, how handsome are our boys?!
I digress - mainly because it is absolutely blinking freezing and I had to get up to make more coffee in an attempt to keep warm which meant that the boys woke up and reminded me how utterly gorgeous they are!
Speaking to Welfare is, if I'm honest, an utter pain in the behind. They have asked Sarah and I for help and - as a result of Sarah volunteering me! - I have taken over the Regiment's Welfare newsletter which was, quite frankly, utter pump (I am trying to not swear, too many of my friends have children now so if you see pump insert something rude!). It is now smart, easy to read and flows well, the old newsletter didn't engage and contained far too much lecturing, wives are not employed by the army, therefore the army has no right to lecture us, helpfully giving them information to make their lives easier on the other hand ... I am hoping that the new format will engage the family community, I have asked for people's pictures, any recipes they want to share and set up a 'Pet of the Month' - our boys were November's pets, I figured that I'd written it and the boys could therefore win, not that they had any competition! - plus saying happy birthday to the Regiment's children. I have also set up a Facebook page so that we can remind people of events etc. I am trying to engage the community, fingers firmly crossed it works!
In any case, getting things organised through Welfare is rather like pulling teeth. They want the events organised, they want help with producing flyers/newsletters, but they want to be in charge of it all, progress is very slow and, quite honestly, very irritating. My plan at the moment is to produce next month's newsletter and then email the template to them and let them crack on with it. According to the conversation I had with Welfare this morning, I need to phone and ask permission before I post anything on Facebook, as a result I want to remove myself as an admin and watch them try to keep it up-to-date, seeing as they can't make a flyer and I'm not sure whether or not they understand the concept of saving something as a JPEG to then upload it as a photo onto the Facebook page ...
Whatever happens with the newsletter and the Facebook page, I have done my bit to drag Welfare into the 21st century, whether or not they stay there is up to them ... I understand the fears over using Facebook, but if it is properly administered it can be a brilliant tool to connect with those who can't make it to the coffee morning's on the patch.
We had our first Mess do together which was lots of fun, I wore this dress from John Lewis which I love, actually bought it for my bridesmaids in a different colour and loved it so much that I bought it in green for myself!
We then went to a ridiculously posh army dinner which was brilliant, it was held here:
We had a fantastic night again, amazing food, the place names were written on a mini version of the menu so I have kept mine in case I am ever feeling the need to do a very yummy dinner! Oh and this time I wore this dress:
In any case that is life as I know it, staying in to wait for various bits & pieces to be fixed (you can't get in outside contractors, everything has to be done via MHS), trying to help Welfare get the community spirit going and attending various dinners! Add to that the normal stuff; baking, cooking, cleaning, training the boys, meeting up with friends and trying to stop myself looking like swamp thing and I honestly don't know how I ever found time to go to work!
