Wherever You Are: The Military Wives: Our true stories of heartbreak, hope and love. The Wives Military

from the usual blips, but while Andy was away I decided to buy a house and a puppy. We were house hunting before he left, and we had agreed I wouldn’t do too much looking while he was away. But by chance I found ‘the’ cottage, and sent him pictures of every room. He rang me and told me to put in an offer; I didn’t tell him that I’d already agreed to buy it.

      He got back from Afghan on a Friday and on the Saturday we signed for the house before he had seen it. Luckily, now he loves it too, but he’s had to do a lot of work on it. There was a brief moment on seeing it in the flesh, when he went, ‘Oh, I didn’t realise there would be this much to do …’ But I think it was good that it gave him something to think about for the final part of the tour, when he saw some horrific incidents, some involving children. I worried no end about what he was witnessing and experiencing. Thinking about the new house was a distraction: it grounded him and was a connection with home that he could control, by having ideas on what we would do with each room. Things out of his control affected him. I know he found it difficult when I sent him a video of Ethan riding his bike for the first time: he’d been teaching him to do it, and he had really wanted to be there when he finally started pedalling.