We are retired civil servants. Tony retired in 2010 the day before his 59th Birthday and Anne, who is a bit younger, retired on the same day. Tony spent 27 years in the prison service ending up as the governor of a large high security training prison while Anne was a teacher for 15 years before joining the prison service as a head of training and skills at a local prison, the job she held when she retired.

We are experienced home exchangers. Between 1995 and 2008 we had 10 exchanges in places as far apart as the USA (5 times), Australia (twice), New Zealand, South Africa and Malaysia. We enjoy travelling and like to engage with people in the places we stay as well as enjoying the local culture.

We are active and adventurous people. The year before we retired, we sold our house and bought a 47 ft Moody sailing yacht and the day after we retired we flew to Greece, where the boat was laying and spent the next 8 years living on her. For the first 4 years we explored the Greek islands and the coast of Turkey, then in 2013 we sailed across the Mediterranean via Sicily, Malta and Spain, through the Straits of Gibraltar and then across the Atlantic via Madeira and The Canary Islands to Antigua in the Caribbean. For the next 4 years, we sailed the Caribbean and the east coast of the USA. Along the way we visited nearly all the Caribbean islands, reached as far south as Surinam and spent significant periods of time in Mexico and Guatemala.

Sadly, our sailing days had to come to an end, largely because the boat was eating into our financial reserves, and in 2019, we sold her.

In 2017 and after much deliberation, decided to move to England’s West Country, to the county of Wiltshire and have spent the past 6 years working on the house to the extent that the previous owners wouldn’t know it - remodelling and installing a new kitchen, decorating every room and completely redesigning and replanting the garden.

We have also been getting to know the locality and establishing ourselves in the community. Tony has taken up church bell ringing, Anne has joined local art groups and we are both members of and heavily involved (Anne as chair and and Tony as secretary) in Warminster u3a, a self help charitable organisation which facilitates a range of activities for people who are no longer in full time employment. At present, we are only taking part in one activity - wine appreciation?.