Mono Monday - Free

Retirement is more than a free bus pass.  I know there are people who prefer working and don't look forward to retirement and those who struggle with it financially and physically, but I have been retired nine years now and it has been nine years of freedom.  I was lucky I was in a job that I enjoyed doing, IT, but eventually I had to stop.  I guess I'm one of the lucky generation with a decent final salary pension topped up with my state pension, though having said that, my father who was a bus driver, had a very full and enjoyable retirement with the freedom to travel on package and coach tours all over Europe and the UK.

Not that my nine years have been all trouble free, two pacemaker operations and a bad bout of pneumonia, all dealt with efficiently within our free NHS.

My only sadness is the lack of freedom brought about by the Brexit vote.  The removal of freedom of people to work within Europe and the loss of european free trade tariffs.

So freedom is the choice to sit in the garden on a sunny day drinking a cup of tea or wander down to Nero for a coffee and a read of the papers.  Freedom is the opportunity, and the means, of being able to take off on short breaks whenever and whereever we feel like it. I just feel sorry for the next generation who'll have to work many more years before they achieve this freedom.