… of Combat Operations. Not really what you’d be expecting from me, is it?!! Well, I have worked with a lovely bunch of young people this summer and now that their exam results have come through, some are off to college soon and others are about to start careers.  One of the nicest lads I know is about to leave us…

Ashley’s off to become an Army Medic and starts his training in Yorkshire next month, so tomorrow will be the last time we work together. The girls and I were a bit stuck for what to get him as a leaving present and had decided that we’d give him a photo of the 3 of us in an altered frame, complete with camouflage cover… but this morning we all looked too wrecked to have a pic taken, so I decided to make him something similar with a cartoon or jokes instead. No, seriously, a photo of the 3 of us would have given him nightmares!!!

So I found Murphy’s Law of Combat Operations (all 142 of them!), printed it out and made a ‘Despatches’ style wallet for it. It will probably give him and his companions a laugh – that is my sincere hope. At the moment I find it inconceivable that he should be in harm’s way in the future and heaven only knows how his parents will feel when he gets his orders at the end of training… That’s life I suppose. Well here it is:

That’s it tied and closed… here it is opened out:

And the 142 ‘Laws’!

It all folds niceley together and I was lucky enough to find the quote and sentiments in what I had left from  an old TLC ‘Xtreme’ scrapbooking kit! Some things are just meant to be, aren’t they?!