Missing Friends

Now, I'm not the biggest Social Butterfly in the world but I do love to talk to friends and just chill. I don't go out much, and relish in staying at home with the ones I love, hearing the laughs of children playing, watching my husband enter a state of unparalleled competitiveness while he tries in vain to beat my 'Bejewelled Blitz' score (never gonna happen btw).
Going to clubs never totally turned my head and since I followed my husband's lead to Germany I have not had the need to go to my local pub on a weekly basis. I have definately lost some of the sparkle that was my social life. I used to be in Public Relations you know!
However, friends mean more to me now than ever before. They become an integral part of my life and I take it to heart if the friendship doesn't work. This is bad. I put everything I have into the bonding process. I find that female friends become more like sisters than ever before.
These women are amazing. The job our husbands do means we are alone for the majority of the time. And, we give up so much for them to keep the home fires burning. We have waved goodbye to our careers, spent hours waiting for calls that never came, and changed plans at last minute for things that never materialise. We've waited for weeks for our loved ones to come home, only to have our hopes dashed at the last minute. We've given birth without our husbands in the same country, had operations and come home to empty houses, and endless disappointments over Christmases, Anniversaries and Birthdays alone. Our friends are the ones who fill our men's boots and they become an integral part of our families.
Then one day, news comes of a Posting and we wave goodbye to the ones we have depended upon through thick and thin but have no way of going with them.
We come from all over the world. Canada, Scotland, Fiji, Australia, USA, Germany. England is a big place too when you lose a friend to the South (ever tried buying a train ticket these days??). It's like you just had your arm cut off. 
This is when Social Networking comes into its own. IM services are a life saver. They open the world up to us. What would we do without emails and Facebook? Those babies we helped friends to rock to sleep at night, are taken away from our lives. The photos we post are so important. It helps us keep a link to each other so that when we come back into each others' lives, the gulf is not so huge.
Well to all my friends I have loved, I miss you all. I would give anything to have a glass of wine with you today. I'd relish every second of playing with your children and making them laugh. But I am here. I am on this laptop every single day in one way or another. I check to see how you are and what you have been doing, even if you don't know it. I look at your pictures of family events and make sure I can see you smiling. It just makes things that little bit more tolerable knowing you are happy where you are. One day, we might even see each other again. It will never be the same but we will have the knowledge that if ever we needed each other, we'd drop everything.
Friends. May we never forget each other.

Life seems to be getting faster

My middle son turned 8 today and although I do feel like the time has been spent doing good things, I do feel like I have been robbed of him. Where did that sweet little boy go to? He has given me lots of laughs and smiles and equal amounts of heartache and frustration. It just seems as though they grow quicker every day.
I cling on to the moments when he thinks a house costs about £1000 and a car costs about £2000. Still no clue. Thank goodness his innocence is still intact.
I counted my grey hairs the other day and had to give up. It was taking too long and it was straining my eyes. Had to put my glasses on. That made me feel even older.
I have never understood why people go under the knife for vanity's sake but I am very close to seeing how some might be swayed.
Actually I am quite looking forward to being older but the transformation in getting there seems to be rapid and shocking. I think if we just went from youthful to 'oldful' in one swoop it might be easier to accept. You know, wake up one morning and just 'be' old. I think its the dread and the unknown that scares us into being vain.
As for my son, he's happy with his gappy smile and his skinny legs. Good on him. I hope he stays happy with his lot. I might even take a page out of his book and start to enjoy the time I'm given instead of wasting it away worrying and causing even more grey hairs.
Happy Birthday Jack Oliver xxxxxxxxxxxx