A new chapter in my life

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Friday 15th January 2016 arriving in Villablanca near Ayamonte, Huelva



Having worked all my life from 15 years of age (as a Saturday girl in Woolworths whilst studying at Stevenage College), apart from short gaps for family and health reasons it is time to put my feet up and I retired 5 days ago from my professional career in HR and management at the age of 64 years. Well not quite put my feet up! I am not one to sit around so within a few days I was on a ferry from Portsmouth to Santander in Spain with Ray, my new beau of ten months. Quite testing to be together 24 hours 7 days a week especially having lived on my own for many years but great to enjoy the sites with someone else; he is fun and we get on well.



What an amazing journey – staying overnight in Portsmouth with a lovely evening meal (thank you Ray) meant an easy start for the morning. Having boarded the ferry we travelled along the English Channel to the Atlantic and into the Bay of Biscay. Having done a similar journey some 15 years ago for a cricket tour to South East Spain, in the middle of summer, with my ex-husband, Simon, throwing up the whole journey and the majority of passengers being sick, I was expecting the worst as this is the middle of winter. How wrong could I be; the crossing was amazing – the sea was beautifully calm and glistening. We had an outside port cabin and as I lay on the narrow bed at night the slight motion must have felt like babies do when being rocked to sleep. A massage in the Spa shop on board topped the journey off before leaving the ferry to set off towards the mountains heading South West.



How lucky am I. Over the next five years I plan to use some of my pension to see those parts of the world on my bucket list but first a few months in Spain to chill out and regain my health which had reached an all-time low both physically and mentally. No more stressful corporate business – hurrah.

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