People who read and enjoyed last year’s travel blog, PatandDavidinItaly, have been kind enough to suggest that we fire up the blog again on our forthcoming trip to England and Ireland.

Both of you readers will recall that Patty and I traveled to Italy last October 1, the day I left full-time employment (and turned 65), in an effort to: 1) See parts of Italy we hadn’t seen before; 2) take a real break from work for an entire month and try not to worry about it, and 3) think about how we would spend the next phase of our lives.

We were moderately successful. We had a great trip to Italy. (The archives are at the bottom of this blog in case anyone wants to relive them.) There was plenty of introspection: when no one around you speaks English, there is plenty of time to talk to yourself. But there was little actual resolve. Eight months later, I am still uncertain about how I will spend semi-retirement. Currently, I have been busy enough with consulting jobs to be quite happy. I don’t know if that has a long-term future. Patty may provide her own insight to this as the blog wears along.

Because the destination is different, we have changed the name of the blog to TravelswithPatty.com

We will spend six days in London, then two weeks in Ireland. The first week in Ireland will consist of travel from Dublin – by way of Belfast, Londonderry (Derry), and Galway — to a house in Kenmare which we have rented for the final week.

We will post periodically and alert our list of friends via e-mail. If we have any great insights about how to spend life in your 60’s, we will send those along as well.