QUITE often I am referred to as an army wife, which I am not, I am barely an RAF wife.

From the outside looking in, the uninitiated think that all the services are the same but they are not even remotely similar. Culturally, the RAF, the navy and the army are very different and so are those who choose to join them.

Mine is a crab not a pongo.

This means he is in the Royal Air Force not the British Army. The RAF are called crabs because their uniform is blue and it is allegedly the same colour as the ointment the navy oiled up their winches called crab fat. The army are called pongos – I leave you to guess why.

Currently he is back working at Bulford Camp.

This presents us with the perfect opportunity to life laundry so we are finally getting our lives in order. It’s very satisfying because I love order and can’t function, or write, if I am surrounded by clutter.

There is something very cathartic about ridding yourself of clutter. We are getting ready for periods of prolonged absence over the next few months which means the more organised I am the better.

12 Mech Brigade are off to Canada on a huge exercise to get 1 Royal Welsh, the lead armoured battle group, worked up to take on a reactive role in April next year. This means that if UK PLC (the Government) needs to deploy an armoured battle group (tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and troops) they will be ready to rock and roll from April 2014.

Several thousand army personnel will be living and working on the Canadian Plains at BATUS (British Army Training Unit Suffield). BATUS is the British Army’s largest armoured training facility, in Alberta, Western Canada. It is not dissimilar to Salisbury Plain and already holds the training tanks and Warrior fighting vehicles.

Tanks are massive bits of kit, with a 120 millimetre main gun and a 1200 brake horsepower V12 engine and are very intimidating. They are used as a menacing deterrent and method of projecting combat power on the battlefield.

I was pretty well-versed in Chinook after 14 years and even co-wrote a book about the role of the mighty Wokka in Afghanistan called Immediate Response, by Major Mark Hammond published by Penguin.

• Writer and journalist Clare Macnaughton’s latest book is available on Amazon worldwide. A Modern Military Mother – Tales from the Domestic Frontline is an honest account of a decade of being married to an RAF officer serving in the British military.

Follow Clare on twitter: @amodmilitarymum Blog: amodernmilitarymother.com