From Yorkshire to Greece

It all started six or seven years ago when Sandra was diagnosed with Cervical cancer at the tender age of 46. Luckily after the usual trips around specialists and hospitals she had to have an hysterectomy. All went well and she made a marvelous recovery but these things have a tendency to focus you mind on what you want out of life. But of course you have to pay the mortgage and bills and even if you have a pension you can't get your hands on it when you are in your forties.

Sandra had worked for years in Nursing homes and caring in the community, and I had worked as a computer engineer so we always managed to have at least one holiday a year. Over the years we have been to many places from the Caribbean to most of the Mediterranean places but we fell in love with the Greek Islands and the people who lived there.

For several years we tried to visit as many islands as we possibly could (53 to date) by various means. Cheap flights to Athens and then island hopping via the ferries, cheap package holidays and going off and doing our own thing when we got there and flotilla holidays where we could just call in at any island which happened to be in the area.

A few of years after Sandra's cancer scare I had a serious back injury which was very debilitating, I couldn't walk more than a few yards without being totally out of it. Again minds started being focused.... After major back surgery (what a star that guy was)I was repaired or at least back to 80% of what I used to be and at least we could do things again. While I was recuperating from my operation I found out that my company was asking for volunteers to take early retirement and if you were over 50 (I was 51)you could get your hands on your pension. I asked for the figures and even though we would not be very well off we would be able to manage especially as the redundancy payment would pay off the mortgage and we didn't owe anything else other than the bills. Well we did it and we are managing still 2 years later.

With this kick in the bum we made the decision that we were going to enjoy our retirement as we didn't know (as none of us do) how long it would last.