The best medicine in the world.

Today I reached a major milestone in my life; I took early retirement from my place of work, the Yorkshire Building Society. I knew that as this was my final day, there would be a presentation and everything which goes with it. As I'm not a person who likes fuss and attention, the lead up has been rather stressful. As it turned out, it was a nice day and I think I coped well, plus it did make me realised what a lovely set of people I have worked with over the years. We started off with a buffet comprising of meat/veg samosas and sheesh kebabs which was followed by my presentation and then finally finished off by me being applauded out of the building. I have spent most of the evening responding to messages and posts received from many friends through social media and I think that it is this that has brought home to me how lucky I have been to work with such people.

I did this little walk two days earlier just to take my mind off of things. I mean, how can anybody moither and be stressed when they are amongst such natural beauty as this. I have a lot of things to be thankful for and one of them is to live in such close proximity to the Yorkshire Dales. The walk followed the Dales Way from Barden Bridge to Appletreewick and then back again. It is only four miles but when the sun is shining and the wild flowers are in the meadows, it is four miles of heaven. It closely follows the River Wharfe as you would expect before heading up in to Appletreewick which is the home to the best pub in the Dales, namely The Craven Arms. I didn't call in but later in the day, the lure of the Fountaine Inn at Linton proved too hard to resist. There was both Hetton Pale Ale and Wharfedale Blonde on so I was spoilt for choise. I chose the Blonde and it was pulled to perfection. Saying it finished my day off nicely would be an understatement!