Thursday 26 March 2015

Deployment Diaries #1




As some of you will already know, my boyfriend Steven is in the Army.  A couple of weeks ago, he left for a six month deployment. Since he went, I've been toying with the idea of doing a sort of 'deployment diary' on here, with little updates on how we're getting on, what I've been doing to keep busy and so on.  I'm not sure how much interest it'd be to the majority, but here goes anyway!

So far, things haven't been too bad. They've been a hell of a lot better than I'd anticipated. Obviously I had a little cry the first day he went, but after a mahoosive bar of chocolate and a good nights sleep, I woke up feeling pretty good all things considered! I've been working pretty much full time every week and we've been super busy so that's helped to keep my mind occupied.  By the time I'm home from work, got changed and had my tea, I'm shattered so all I want to do is curl up in bed and binge watch Netflix, my current favourite being Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. (That show is all kinds of awesome...)  I thought I'd be a complete wreck, and while I've certainly had my moments, on the whole I've been my usual (mostly!) positive self.

Decent contact between us has certainly contributed to that I think.  He warned me before he went that he couldn't guarantee how often we'd be in touch as the Internet signal isn't particularly great, and obviously phone calls are pretty much a no-go unless we want massive bills.  But as it turns out, contact has been pretty great.  He gets 45 free minutes of Internet use in the computer room each day. Although this isn't a huge amount, it's enough for a quick chat via Facebook each evening.  As we expected, the signal isn't great so there's a slight delay in him getting my messages so there's not a great deal of chat, but more than enough to catch up on eachothers' day and what we're up to that evening etc.  There's also Skype booths which we used for the first time this week.  It's a bit tricky for him to get a slot though as you have to book in first thing on a morning and once all the slots have gone, that's it.  It's a bit like trying to phone your doctors' for an appointment when they open on a morning! He also gets a 100 minute Internet card for his room, which comes in handy for the odd message during the day, or if he can't get to the computer room for whatever reason.  

Before he left, I came up with a plan. For each of the months that he's away, I was going to plan a little trip somewhere so every month I had one big thing to look forward too, along with lots of little things to look forward to of course! But I thought that if I just counted down to each of the 'big things' as opposed to counting down six whole months, it'd help the time go quicker.  The first of these things is coming up in just three more weeks... three weeks!! I'm going to see Wicked on tour in Sunderland.  I saw it in London over 5 years ago now and just fell in love with it, even though I was sat right near the back. I've been dying to see it again ever since, and am even guilty of searching YouTube for videos of it; I've actually watched the whole show online at least another three times! This time we're sat about four rows from the front so there will certainly be  a better view; I'm just worried I'll sing along as I know all the words now...! We're making a night of it and staying over, so we'll be going out for a few drinks and maybe a little dance (but not too much, we know how much I hate clubbing....) after the show. I can't wait! 

So basically, it's so far, so good! Obviously I miss him loads and it's early days but these last few weeks of told me that I can handle this deployment, and now that he's there, the countdown to him coming home begins!


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1 comment

  1. I can't imagine how hard that must be but it's lovely that you have these things to look forward to. Thank goodness for things like Skype nowadays, however must people have coped without being able to communicate for so long before xx
    www.lovedbylaura.com

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