Farewell AF

Compared to the Greek epic that was getting out of the army (complete with pointless quests and tragic battles and things), getting out of the air force was more like a Jane Austen novel. There was a great deal of charming conversation, some of the verbal sparring variety, some more a gentle banter, and a few moments of genteel uncertainty backed by the comfortable knowledge that all would turn right in the end. Unfortunately neither Colin Firth nor Ciaran Hinds (yes, I like those film versions of the books; no I wasn't all that keen on Gwyneth Paltrow. Hugh Grant in his fluttering eyelashes mode makes me slightly ill and only Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman made that film nearly - nearly - worthwhile) were in evidence.

Bit ironic* that it took herculian effort to extricate ourselves from the army when we were desperate to go and they weren't really terribly interested in keeping us, while leaving the air force, which we didn't actually want to do at all, went quickly and easily.

Kirk polished up his resume (and let me tell you, a bit of intelligence work and some counter-terrorism is very interesting to translate into traditional business skills!) and registered himself with an executive head-hunting firm. We bought him a suit, three shirts and a handful of ties. For the first time in our marriage we were going to have to face the real world.

*Yes I'm aware that this is an incorrect use of the word ironic. However I wish some bright person would come up with a word that means what everyone thinks ironic means, because it's an extremely useful word. For the moment I'm simply going to misuse 'ironic' because it sounds better in the sentence than 'rather wry and interesting coincidence.' However my reckless abuse of the language will haunt me. No, honestly it will!