Special entry. The blog is 10yrs old

Live a little, be a gypsy, get around Get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around. Admiral Halsey. McCartney I love this McCartney song. It's pure bubble gum pop I know, but these words create a particular stirring in me. A couple of people have, because of my wanderlust, accused me of being a gypsy. They probably seek to criticise me, failing to realise that I take it as a compliment. So the blog has acted as a record of my "gypsy " travels. It was initially started because friends and family would ask us the same repeated questions but now we just reply with the standard answer... "where are you? " READ THE BLOG "When are you coming home?." READ THE BLOG "Lend us £100?" READ THE BLOG. But the blog acts as a reference point and has settled many winter fireside arguments about where we've been on certain dates or how long we've stayed. Because of my metulous emphasis on prices and costs prospective visitors to our locations get some idea of costs involved and more importantly the ambience or the general beauty of a place. The blog also tells part of a story, the autumn years of a life. I wonder where it will end but hope it might offer some protection from a final chapter that might see me cast aground in a residential home, dementing and frail sat on a toilet with my trousers round my ankles supervised by a young care assistant who stares dreamily at her phone unaware of anything about me. At that point our Sophie or Tim will appear telling her to take some interest in me and indicate that I'm a real person with a valued life telling her to " READ THE BLOG " Hopefully she will read it and find out about some one with an interesting "Gypsy" life, in the same way I did as a young student nurse at Rainhill. The old social worker, detailed reports on patients taught me much and I can still remember some 45 yrs later. There was Pat who "Left Liverpool for the Isle of man and worked as a fortune teller, omly to give it up as she saw no future for herself" Sadly Charlie who "In the early fifties was diagnosed schizophrenic after complaining of seeing a man's head in a box talking to him". It later transpired that he had walked past the very first TV sales shop in Liverpool. But here's to brighter days and seeing those elderly Germans last night dancing and laughing reminded me that we are all part of a wider community of "gypsies", just trying to make the most of our final year's. Here's to another 10 years of the blog, "Live a little, be a gypsy, get around". Some of the early photos added to the first blog posts.