Grown up gap years ... taking a mid-life mini retirement abroad

Taking a mini-retirement at 43 I’m 43 now, but when I was 18 you went to university, got a degree, hopefully found a job and embarked straight away on a lifetime of work. These days you do your ‘A’ levels then take a year off. How civilised is that? I’ve decided I’d like to take me and the family on a grown up gap year. I started work in 1987, which means I’ve been working now for 21 years. If I retire at 65, that puts 2009 bang in the middle of my working life … what a great time to take a year ... Read Full Story

If you're travelling abroad and want to make blog updates directly from your mobile phone to your website, make sure you check out Shozu. Take a look at a previous post to see the demo of embedded video on the page. This was done by sending video directly from a mobile phone to ShoZu.com , which in turn redirected it automatically to my public Flickr account , which I use to feed images to my castle-visits.co.uk and 80spoplover.co.uk websites. From there, using the ‘Blog this’ tool in Flickr, it posted directly to this blog, pulling in my LiveSig as it did so (the bit at ... Read Full Story

Wikizines are interactive magazines that anyone can create or edit - and this one is called "Grown up gap years ... taking a mid-life mini retirement abroad". Here you can find fresh voices and respond in real time. Some members write articles about recent news and trends related to the wikizine's topic, others recount relevant personal stories or share their favorite pictures and video clips. Got an interesting idea or story to share with other members of this wikizine? Well, then put on your journalist's cap and add your own article! Read Full Story