The rest of my life: Arriving Home

I didn't need to take a spin with R last night. The problem was obvious as soon as I turned the engine on. So this morning finds me getting the exhaust fixed. While the car is in Kwik Fit, I take a boring walk along Trent Valley Road, past a very interesting place.

The top window was my office in the 90s.

The building, originally a work house was erected on land purchased from Lichfield Corporation and Lord Lichfield. The new building was constructed in red brick (made from the clay dug out from the workhouse foundations) and embellished by blue bricks at the front and sides. The builder was William Sissons of Hull. Work began on 24th May, 1838, with a foundation stone being laid by the Chairman, Edward Grove. The building received its first inmates almost exactly two years later on 24th May, 1840. Up until this point, the Union had continued to use former parish workhouse accommodation from St Mary's in Sandford Street, and at Rugeley.

Read more here

The larger buildings behind, which I think were 'geriatric wards' back in my day have been replaced by the Samuel Johnson Community Hospital. Were we in a country which takes health care spending seriously it would be an all singing, all dancing acute hospital. As it is Lichfield people need to travel to Sutton or Burton for acute and emergency care. .

Next I am reduced to a cappuccino in Costa at Tesco! The store seems to have doubled in size! No wonder Finefare, (previously a cinema) has closed

April showers and lorries hamper my journey North. It's cold but dry at the Macclesfield crem. Very dark by my plaque.

I then meet a nice man. He cleans his wife's bench and I sit on it and eat the sandwhich that M kindly made for me. He shows me his wife's headstone; she is younger than me. His nephew is next door. He was 6 when he died in 1999. This gentleman visits every day. He misses them.

Next I go over to see Dad. I am heartened to see improvements where the flood was.