A week from retirement

Only a week to go until we celebrate Ray's 65th birthday. After that it is only five weeks until we set off on our first season of cruising.

The past six months have been a bit of "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" time. It started with my car blowing a head gasket only a couple of weeks after paying out for the MOT. This meant we had to buy another car in a hurry. That was followed by a few more minor but unexpected expenses which ate into our finances and meant we didn't have as much money to spend on the boat as we didn't want to spend all our spare cash in case of further emergencies. A couple of weeks work I had been promised fell through so our income was less than expected too.

October saw more expenditure, but for a very happy reason, the birth of Nicholas, our third grandchild and then the Christmas season was upon us with much travelling and all the associated expenses. We did consider putting off retirement for a while but decided we had looked forward to it for too long and that we can carry on working on the boat while we travel.

We are now working hard to get as much done as we can, money and time permitting.