5 things to do before we leave Europe.

March 29th 2019 is not only going to be my first wedding anniversary it is, as it currently stands, the day we will leave Europe.
I’m not going to call it Brexit for that is not a real word (see also Brexiteers and Remoaners. God, it isn’t even a humourous play on words).
We will no longer be part of the European Union, maybe.

Now, like 48.1% of this nation (and those who have subsequently realised they made a big mistake) this saddens me.
I feel like my children have been robbed of many of the opportunities my generation had growing up.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a political rant, I’m not clever enough to undertake such a thing.
Rather it’s my suggestions of the things we need to enjoy before they’re no longer ours to enjoy.

1. Leaving the airport
   Obviously, we will still be allowed to leave the airport but maybe not quite as quickly or efficiently as we do at the moment. Now, we can land, summon an Uber, grab our bag and be out within 30 minutes. In the future, with our new fancy blue passports with will have to stand in a queue, declare what we’ve purchased and probably pay taxes on it. YAY TAXES.
2. Get a new life in the sun 
   It’s a dream a lot of us have and hope to achieve. Right now we have the right to live and work in the EU for as long as we want to!
   We can open a little cafe in Provence or buy a town house in Marbella. We can run a vineyard in Tuscany or even receive funding to study in Amsterdam for a few months.
   Europe is our oyster, for now.
   
3. Enjoy well priced British produce
   At present the EU pays our lovely farmers around £3bn a year in grants, and approximately 85,000 EU citizens travel to the UK annually to work on the harvest.
   Many British farmers are already struggling, without the grants it isn’t going to get any easier. I also can’t imagine enough British people willing to harvest as a job and so, produce may well decline and cost will increase.
   Enjoy them apples while you can.
   
4. Enjoy retirement in the sun
   Currently there are around 247,400, retired Brits larging it in Europe, with most living in Spain. They are living their very best life and why not? After years of hard work and paying into private pensions, they are reaping their rewards.
   Unfortunately, from next March they may not be able to receive the payments from their private pensions due to rules that currently allow insurers and pension providers to send money being wiped out. Obviously, there is EVERY intention for Britain to make a deal with Europe about this…they just haven’t started talking yet.
   After all that sun, retirement in Eastbourne isn’t really going to cut it.
5. Be ill on holiday
   OK, maybe not the most fun of ideas BUT at present, thanks to the handy little EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) should some ill become us we can be treated in the very same way as a resident of that country would be treated. That is usually free or at very little cost to us. After March we’re either going to have to suck it up or hope a family member likes us enough to pay for our treatment, I fear many of us will find ourselves abandoned!

We mustn’t consider it all bad though, leaving the EU has a lot of positives too – no further requirement for Nigel Farage, as many bent bananas as we want, bag pipes won’t be silenced and, of course, Donald Trump thinks it’s a GREAT idea.

Right, I’m off to buy a house in the sun!

This is a collaborative post.