Look Mum - no broken bones!

Glorious sunshine, good beats, two hours in the car with my JS and a pub lunch.  It doesn't get better than that!  I haven't seen Connor for what seems like an age but yesterday I managed to catch up with him when I took him back to barracks after his weekend at home.  He's been so busy lately having returned from a skiing trip to Italy a week or so ago then going straight out again onto manouvres for almost a week.  Surprisingly, he even managed not to break anything!  He seems to have made good progress with the skiing, especially since he's never done it before.  He's making plans to complete a ski instructors course some time in the future.  For the time being he's back to the hockey though which he really loves.  The manouvres seemed to go well by all accounts too with him excelling at the shooting.  I think that's probably his favourite bit.  So much excitement!  This week he's back to PT and education so he'll be back to earth with a bump no doubt! 

Happy but exhausted

It seems an age since I posted any updates on here.  Connor was been home a couple of weekends but is now away for the next few weeks.  I managed to spend a good 45 minutes with him on the telephone last night and can report that he was in extremely high spirits!  They've had a busy week and he's pretty exhausted but he had loads to tell me.

He seemed particularly pleased with his performance during the escape and evade activity.  This is the army's version of hide and seek.  Basically the juniors are required to get from checkpoint to checkpoint whilst being chased and must evade capture at all costs.  Connor's description of this was something along the lines of "well good, but hard" with the highlight involving him diving over a barbed wire fence head first, puncturing his hands on the razor sharp barbs as he did so.  Apparently, his section were the only ones to evade capture, so he was pretty pleased about that, you know how competitive he is!

He was really suffering though when I spoke to him last night.  During the course of the week they'd had navigation exercises, night navigation, escape and evade, and the army's version of circuit training.  Roughly translated as a number of 1.6 kilometre runs with or without full kit, carrying various objects such as tractor tyres, interspersed with team challenges and the snipers alley.  Basically, snipers alley refers to the long pits of mud, water and ice that soldiers are often seen belly-crawling through on tv, covered in camel nets.  They then had a stretcher run followed by assault course in full kit then a work-out on the rifle range.  I was exhausted just listening to him!

For anyone who's unfamiliar with modern day army life you might be surprised to learn that the barracks that the junior soldiers ordinarily live in are very much like university halls of residence in modern multi-storey buildings, only instead of them having individual rooms they share 12 to a room.  It's all very civilised I have to say.  This week however, the JSs have been to an old-style barracks for the week where they stayed in the long single-storey wooden buildings.  I thought this might have been a challenge for Connor, given that he does find it difficult to share space with 11 others in his section but he seemed to really enjoy it.  In the old barracks there are up to 30 soldiers in one room and he seemed to thrive on the camaraderie and the chance to be with new people. 

Today he's out on cross country, so there's not much time to recover from the previous week's activities.  He won't be home for a few weekends because he has to fit in voluntary service as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and a skiing trip, but at least it sounds as though he's picked himself up after the Christmas break and has settled back into army life, which is great news. 

Roller Coaster

I never thought I'd hear the day when my JS would say that what he's doing isn't challenging enough!  Honestly, there's no pleasing some people!  He does like to be busy though, bless him, and he'd heard that when soldiers aren't on a tour of duty they just sit around and do nothing.  I'm sure it's not really like that though...

What I am sure about is that the doctors at base must be pretty fed up with seeing Connor.  Now it's his foot and he's had to have it x-rayed.  Just waiting for results which he should have by tomorrow.  I really hope it's nothing too serious because if it is, they may have to defer his progress until it's sorted out. 

It seems to be one heck of a roller coaster ride this journey from JS to soldier and we're not even half way through yet!  Having said that, I'm still proud of him getting this far - not all those who started out with him have been so lucky.

Back to base

So much for seeing my Junior Soldier over Christmas.  I think I saw him twice, but then there's little hope for me now there's a girlfriend on the scene!  It was nice to see him though.  He's changed so much since I last saw him about five weeks ago, the most noteable difference being the huge muscles he suddenly seems to have developed!  He's obviously being put through his paces, which is no bad thing. 

This week, back on base, he's looking forward to a couple of marathon hikes then they're out on manouevres for four days.  I don't envy them that, especially in the weather we've been having but they'll need to get fit again after all the excesses of Christmas no doubt.

Well, Happy New Year to everyone.  Let's hope it's a good one and best of luck to all the Junior Soldiers (who are now Senior Junior Soldiers - if that makes sense!).

Merry Christmas!

Permission for use of image obtained from http://www.wildshotsonline.com/

A very big thank you to everyone who's shown their support for Connor by following the blog.  He hasn't always found his new way of life easy and I'm sure it's been uplifting for him to know that his friends and family are all behind him.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Home safe and sound!

Despite the snow, Connor is home at last.  I'm so pleased he's made it through the first term and I'm sure he's ready for his well-earned rest.  When I get chance to see him is anybody's guess though because the snow here is already at least six inches deep and doesn't show any sign of stopping!  At least I can text and ring him any time I like now and I'm likely to get a response :-)

Home in the snow

Well, we are knee-deep in snow and my baby is on his way home by train!  I did try advising him that perhaps it wasn't the best idea he's ever had but he wasn't buying into that.  Even if he gets home tonight, I'm not sure that he'll make it back in time for his deadline on Sunday evening!  Fingers crossed that the snow thaws by then.