Last week I managed to quite overwhelm myself thinking about the Colorado cabin project. I have given you, my readers, a flavour of the complexities of getting this scheme hopefully off the ground and I think I may have mentioned it’s taking a toll on my mental health. Not in any serious way but just in the way of feeling a bit snowed under with it all. Even waking up in the middle of the night and running it all through my brain in one of those famous night-time loops.
So this week now for something completely different. I decided I needed a break, somewhat on the lines of reminding myself, as I have written before, that the grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere. So with this in mind I started to look around for evidence of this hypothesis.
This was what the day served up. The fact that the evidence was there in front of me without having to struggle too hard to find it, is a reminder that you have to have your mind tuned to the right frequency. It’s easy to miss the signs if you’re not attuned.
This is what the day served up when I paid attention. I’ll give you three examples and then I want to concentrate on the pleasure of just one. The first was an item on my Facebook page of what was happening at my local pub. They showed a picture of the outside space (you couldn’t call it a garden) and what it was going to be like when it opened up on April 17th I think it was.
It looked nice, maybe even nicer for not being full of people but this is a story for another time, I suspect. Mainly it was the nostalgia of seeing a photo of a pub that has been my local for over thirty years I guess. At times of uncertainty, as these are, it’s good to rediscover one’s roots. Pub lunches with our dogs have been a central plank of our retirement lives and we’ve missed them. True there has been debate which of our three locals will be our first port of call when all this ends. This one is closest to our main house so it’s certainly in with a good chance.
And I realise now (I didn’t before, the title came last) that this idea of re-excavating one’s roots is going to be a key theme for this retirement blog. I say that because the second event of this day was a TV programme called Escape to the Country. This particular programme was based around the search of a couple who had lived in Holland coming back to the UK, looking for a house, and specifically in The Peak District which, as many of you will know, is primarily in Derbyshire. And the more attentive of you will remember that this is my home county. True we’ve been in Yorkshire for longer than I ever lived in Derbyshire (18 years) but still one’s roots are one’s roots.
So there was a good deal of pleasure re-visiting the area that has been off-limits to us completely for the last 4 or so months and overall for most of last year. So yes, it was a vicarious (lovely word) pleasure but none the less for that. True this couple were looking at houses in the one million to one and a half million pounds bracket but the great thing was that I wouldn’t have given you a tenner for any of the three houses the programme took them to. So a fun watch without setting me off on the, ooh I’d like another house, track.
But the last event and the one that really made my day, in the context I’ve described above, was another TV programme entitled Architecture the Railways built. If there is one kind of building / architecture that I love (to the point of using various examples as a distracting focus for my brain in the middle of the night when other less enjoyable thoughts are doing the rounds), it’s railway stations.
I am particularly drawn to old railway stations almost always based on Victorian architecture even if they used any and all historical styles – Georgian, Gothic, Medieval, French chateau, classical, etc. – as inspiration. The Victorians might have buggered up many an early English church under the banner of progress but they certainly could design and build a railway station. An often perfect blend of the practical and the aesthetic, the scientific with the artistic and so on.
So this programme is a banker for me in times of complexity which as we know, this still is. So I say ‘old’ stations not to say I don’t like the architecture of today’s impressive cathedrals and no coincidence that Victorian stations were often referred to as today’s cathedrals. That’s today as in yesterday if you get my meaning. They were the cathedrals of the Victorian Age.
I digress, as I say, I like old and, as a bonus if possible, isolated stations and my final pick-me up / reminder of the pleasures of my roots is Wingfield station in Derbyshire, not a million miles from where I was born and a place we used to drive past on our Sunday afternoon’s out as a child which I hated by the way. Wingfield or more accurately South Wingfield manor was one of the many places Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned by our own dear Queen Elizabeth 1st prior to finishing her off. Was she beheaded? I expect so.
The photo at the start of this retirement blog shows Wingfield station as it is today, sadly neglected, that’s the bad news, but the good news is that it has recently received a grant from Historic England (I might be wrong about this) to be restored to its former glory (which you can barely detect from this photo but google it for more examples) and then probably make it available for local community use. Not sure about this either.
But what I do know is that we discovered Wingfield station before this TV programme and have admired it for a long time. It’s in the same village as one of our favourite Derbyshire pubs where we go with the dogs for lunch when we’re in those parts. The pub is called The Bluebell if you’re ever in the area. This will be a contender, along with the above, for our first visit come the ending of lockdown. I expect I’ll be writing a retirement blog about this come the day. It’s been nice to get away from projects that are in danger of over-whelming me.