A & E

This is Shaun around 4 am this morning. In an A&E department of our nearest hospital. He has been complaining of some stomach pains since Sunday night and the last couple of nights were rough, for both of us. At 2 am this morning he was getting worse so I suggested we go to A&E to get him checked. He is due to fly to Afghanistan tomorrow for 10 days and he does not need to be worried about his health. So A&E it was. 4 hours later we left, with some tablets. They don't know what it was but it doesn't seem serious so hopefully he will be OK.

Last couple of days have been hard. A friend passed away this week of cancer. He leaves behind his wife and three small kids, all under the age of eight. When we first met him, in Brunei 7-8 years ago he was very fit army officer. Last year we found out he had throat cancer but we really thought he would make it through. But life is so fragile sometimes. It makes me realise time and time again that we should not take anything for granted and that we should enjoy every day to its fullest. John, we will miss you greatly but I am sure we will meet again.

Hello Friday!

Here they are - some of my rumblings!

It's Friday afternoon, nearly 5 pm and I am waiting for that magic 5:30 pm so that I can leave the office. Shaun is away and one of the young female officers is coming over for a dinner and girly evening away from the guys. Shaun is her boss and she never comes when he is around which I find quite funny. I cannot imagine him being scary :))) But I do feel for her as she is the most junior officer in the Mess (single officers live there) and living with the boys can get to you sometimes I guess. So when I am on my own she pops over and I enjoy the evenings like that as well.

This is my second week of consistent training and I love it. The first time I went back to the club swim it was painful. REALLLLY painful. But the second time was better and the third even better. I love swimming. I just wish I was faster.

Shaun has been away a lot. They are deploying in 4-5 weeks and I guess they are putting "finishing touches" on their training as well. He was away the whole last week and I got a call on Sunday night at 11 pm to come and get him from the base. Then he left again on Wednesday morning and should be back home tomorrow. Woo hoo. But then he is due to go away next week for 10 days. :)))

I think that it is certain that I won't be racing Oceanside. We are just really short on time and I do not want to stress about the race the week before Shaun deploys. We will both have a week off work so I am still thinking of ways (somewhere closer) to spend that week. We will most likely just drive to France and enjoy their food and wine. And some nice riding.

But the plan is not definite yet so if you have any ideas please do share.

Snow

I got off the train on Wednesday night to find my car totally buried in snow. My normal 5 mins drive from the train station home took me over half an hour. On Thursday morning my car and me in it were the first to drive down our road. Needless to say, the trains were a mess and I ended up working from home.

It was lovely to walk in the snow and enjoy the fresh air. But this country never gets this much snow and we simply cannot cope with it. So, can we please have some nice weather now.

Plans, plans, plans

After a few pretty awful days I am finally feeling better. Not 100%, not even 80%, but I hope I am getting there slowly. Apparently I had a virus (possibly even swine flu) and that is why my antibiotics were not working properly. I still have blocked nose, I cough and also sound nothing like me but I feel soooo much better than I did over the weekend.

I had a chat with a good friend who is also a doctor about how soon I can get back to training but she told me to wait until I feel better because my immune system is lower than normal right now and I could pick something up again if I start training too soon. So I am waiting.... I am hoping to do some light training this weekend. I have not trained properly for almost 5 full weeks. It has all been on and off with the last two weeks being particularly bad so I am terrified of getting back to training. Don't get me wrong, I simply cannot wait to do it, but at the same time I am terrified of seeing that my fitness has gone downhill. And it has, and I HATE it. But as long as I am healthy I am going to work my butt off to get to where I was (and pass that) soon. So, for the weekend, I hope to do an easy 1 hour spin on the bike and an easy run and then get back to Jen's training programme on Monday.

On a slightly different note, Shaun has found out today that he probably won't deploy until the first week of April, which is great news because I get to spend more time with him. But to me that screamed NO OCEANSIDE straight away. But.... There may be a way around it and we won't really know for sure until some time in March but I hope our plan works. And that is for Shaun to come to Cali with me at the end of March. Apparently he needs to be in the UK at least 5 days before they deploy so it is completely workable. We will do our best to make it work but we are completely at the mercy of the Army. AGAIN.!!!! Everyone, fingers crossed.

And staying on the Army topic, we have another dinner night at the Officers' Mess this Friday. To be perfectly honest I do not feel like going at all. It means that I have to rush from work, get home, get ready, rush to the Mess, chat to the people I have to even though I do not particularly want to (does that sound bad???) etc, etc. I know that in the end we will have good time but right now I feel that I would rather be in my PJs in front of my TV on that Friday night. But it is the last party before the battalion deploys so it IS important to be there.