Carpe Diem, the name of our first travel blog, was inspired by the premature deaths of two people.

This entry explains the inspiration behind our new blog title, “It can be done”!

For those of you who followed Carpe Diem you will remember our stay on the Malaysian Island of Langkawi. Amongst many other Christmas and New Year revellers we met Mick and Karen from Chesterfield. Mick had worked for the same company since leaving school but he was made redundant on the closure of the factory.

Mick was a little younger than Neil and many at that age would feel that they had been dealt a hand from the bottom of the pack. However, unlike a lot of his former workmates, Mick and Karen thought they had been dealt a Royal Flush. He was given a modest pension, a lump sum to invest and they could rent out their house to provide additional income. This was the perfect opportunity to explore many parts of the world armed with a battered copy of Lonely Planet’s “South East Asia on a Shoestring”.

When we first spoke with them they were so excited by the prospect of travel. They were quite clearly on a very limited budget but when Mick said to us in his Derbyshire accent “we’re living like Kings us, living like Kings” we were just inspired by their enthusiasm for everything – life, travel, experiences no matter how small, you name it they just oozed a zest for life……nothing, absolutely nothing, deterred either of them.

A phrase that Mick used a lot was “it can be done”. Nothing for those two was impossible, nothing would faze them.

This mindset has helped us through a few things since we met them, when things didn’t go as planned or when things just got tough. You just need to believe that it’s in the mind and that “it can be done”!