I was speaking with a young Slovakian woman, Misha, if I caught her name right. Middle twenties?

She told me, "One day, my friend said to me, we've worked in Prague, a year in London, so where next? Do you know if we wanted, we could work in New Zealand!" Misha said she'd immediately told her friend they couldn't.

The next day they were booking flights, some tortuous route, 7 flights that had Amsterdam as their first stop? And then there they were, on the other side of the world.

As we were, on possibly our last big antipodean adventure, to New Zealand. Misha was serving drinks, chatting to passengers, jumping ashore & tying the boat up in Akaroa harbour near earthquake devastated Christchurch, South Island. At night she served drinks in a bar where her French boyfriend was a chef.

At another stop, Queenstown, we got served by a guy with a Scottish accent. He'd been brought up on the same tenemented Edinburgh street as my Mum. So are you on a gap year or something? No, spent time in the Marines, left, went to Australia, met some guys coming here, so tagged along.

On some airport shuttle a very young looking English girl got in. She'd worked in the NHS for 10 or so years, got fed up & decided to travel. I think we were in Auckland, North Island. That seems brave, I offered? Not really, my brother's in Sydney, if I need. Sydney's as near as Africa is to us.

We went for lunch, the waitress was a French girl, I guessed. Yes, I'm here with my boyfriend for a year, my Spanish is good, I came here (she lived 200 miles from Calais) to improve my English!

Why tell you these tales? All about youngsters taking a few risks, trying something new, doubt any were much older than 30!

Let's broaden our horizons, set ourselves new challenges, try new experiences. Here, in East Lancs, I feel & fear we are over risk averse, many of our youngsters have low self esteem, low aspirations!