A perfect retirement day? Well for me at least. If I brainstormed what such a day might look like, it would probably include some or all of the following. First up we would probably be somewhere different and of course in a place we like. Then we’d have the following activities – trains, souvenirs, old churches, coffee and cake in a cafe in a pleasant setting, books, a bit of art and then some DIY type activity in the form of negotiating with my neighbour to remove the old shed (see below) so not necessarily carried out by me and finally a nice meal with a glass or two of wine. See all in photos below.
Not much to ask for is it. Well yesterday with some planning and some good fortune we had all of the above. You can see the church up above it’s St Mary’s in a Derbyshire town called Wirksworth. That gives a lot of clues as to where we were. It’s a beautiful church and harks back to the days when Wirksworth was a quite well off place courtesy of sheep and quarrying, I think. Wherever the money came from, you can see from the interior shots below just how beautiful it is.
We’d come to Wirksworth through road works and pre-bank-holiday traffic (the only blight on the day) to visit the Heritage railway bookshop where I bought the six books in the photo below and also the art work in the next photo. Not to everybody’s taste of course but perfect for our black and white bedroom in the Heanor house. It was a bit crumpled when I took it out of its wrapping to photograph it but then for £4 you don’t expect the Mona Lisa do you?
Having worked hard to spend a modest amount of money we felt we’d deserved our coffee and cake. It might normally have been a pub meal but we did that yesterday and may well do it again tomorrow. Coming down to Derbyshire is a kind of holiday after all. I foolishly didn’t take a picture of the cafe so you will have to imagine that.
Perfect retirement day summary
So there we are, this was yesterday, with a bit of luck and a certain amount of skill, a perfect retirement day. Just goes to show a person can make him or herself happy if you work hard to bring this about.
