Official first date of retirement - 1st September, 2010

A picture to finish off our trip to the South of France. The beach is deserted because it is the end of the holidays. We are not in the photo because we are sitting on the wall eating ice creams.
Today is my official date of retirement. I woke up early this morning at 6.45 a.m., which is 7.45 a.m. in France, and the time I have been getting up in order to go for a run and then a swim. I also realised that I did not need to get up in order to appear at work, which is the usual activity on the first day after I return from holidays. A great feeling - so I sat in bed in the sunshine and ate my breakfast and thought about everyone at school heading off for a day of work. I then went for a run, followed by coffee with Emma, Steve and kids. Fantastic! During the day I have thought about people at school and wondered how it was all going but on the whole I have really enjoyed my day of freedom.

Last night when I got home I opened my payslip and my first state pension notification and my heart did a flip - there was an enormous difference in the number of figures on the pages. This is called a reality check!

Back to the South of France - Well the wind did blow again! And again it disappeared at about 1 a.m. so we left in brilliant sunshine, which made us all feel really depressed. Hans very kindly helped us with the luggage so that we could all go to the train station together. As he has a BMW convertible he could only take one passenger so Donna was the lucky person to have a ride in the gorgeous car. The rest of us piled into our tiny Toyota. Thank you Hans for helping us and continue to have a great time down in all that lovely sunshine - we feel envious.

Thank goodness my eye has nearly cleared up - all the cold packs and the Ibruprofen tablets helped. Scott came back with grazed knees due to unsuccessful wheelies on his bike and James came into contact with an electric fence and has a nasty burn mark on his leg. We all have a large number of mosquito bites on our arms and legs but we look fit, tanned and healthy. A great holiday!