My mother has recently been diagnosed with the early stages of dementia and, needless to say, this is causing me concern and I’m losing sleep as a result. I’ve tried to get a good eight hours before I have to get up and start work by 9.00 – fortunately I work from home as a writer/digital typist for the real estate industry so I don’t HAVE to be up before 8.30, but even if I go to bed at midnight and read or listen to dreamy classical music on the radio for half an hour, I still find myself tossing and turning well before the end of my eight hour sleep!

What can I say? Summer arrived – full of promise. The sun shone brightly, the wind dropped and we even had to drag the air conditioning unit into the office. It was just a cheapo one and is incredibly noisy, hence we tend to use fans unless it’s too hot for the fans to work effectively. It’s not so much that the weather is mega hot; it’s just that, with the two of us working in a small room, each running a PC from dawn to dusk, the heat just becomes overpowering.

The majority of us acknowledge that our brave forces, whether they be on the ground, at sea or in the air, are the most vital element of any war campaign, but other essential elements are required to keep the cogs of war turning