I thought I was happy where I was, but I’m so much happier here

Margaret moved to a three bedroomed apartment at The Folds in January 2022, having previously lived in in Marple Bridge for 35 years in a house that she built with her husband Peter.

“The first house that we bought was a three bedroomed house in Hawk Green where we lived for eight years and then we moved to a bigger house with four bedrooms in Marple Bridge before deciding to build.

“Building our own house was Peter’s idea and he found the plot. It was a beautiful house set in half an acre of gardens and I was very fond of it.”

Having spent 30 happy years together in the home they built, sadly Peter died in May 2017. Margaret stayed in their family home for five more years.

“The actual decision to move was the result of a TIA which I had in November 2020. That was a wakeup call. It took about six months for me to recover from the stroke and that’s when I happened to read an article in the local newspaper about The Folds winning an award.

“I decided to visit with a friend and I just fell in love with it. I put the deposit down the second time I came…and I don’t regret it one bit! It’s really lovely. My first impressions were that it was like a very exclusive hotel and I loved it!

“Until I read that article, I hadn’t realised there were things like the summer house and the beautiful gardens. My daughter-in-law is a landscape designer and she was just overcome by the quality of the landscape design and the planting at The Folds.

With no close family living nearby, one of the things that appealed to Margaret was the fact that there would be somebody on hand 24 hours a day if anything ever happened again.

“If there wasn’t 24 hour support on hand, I wouldn’t have come. The management team know everybody by name. They’re very friendly and they’re very willing to help. Aaron’s amazing!”

“I also know the importance of having additional care available when you need it because I had a serious accident when I was 70. I suppose that experience must have played a part in my thinking about having help on hand in the future because up until then I felt invulnerable.”

“I think the best thing about moving to a retirement community is the stimulus of like-minded people really. It’s the social life as much as anything.

“We have much more time available to do the things that we want to do because we no longer have to worry about the upkeep of a big house and garden.

“I enjoy walking and belong to the walking club at The Folds. I’m also a founder member of the gardening club. There are several very keen gardeners. We grew sunflowers this year and planted them out and we’ve grown celery, beetroot and lettuce.

“I do yoga on Wednesday mornings and Pilates on Monday mornings at the parish centre at Mellor. I’ve done yoga for over 40 years and I’ve done Pilates for the last 10 or 12 years. There’s an exercise class here at The Folds – Move It with Mags – on a Wednesday. That’s a balance and flexibility class but I think my Yoga and Pilates classes cover all of that for me and it clashes with my yoga class.

“I have friends from Marple Bridge who come regularly to visit and play bridge. It’s nice to be able to offer them a coffee in the lounge and I enjoy baking so I often provide tea and cake in my apartment.

“I’ve also made some good friends here. There’s a lady that I play Othello, the board game, with. We also play whist here every week on a Tuesday in the activities room. I’m a jigsaw addict and there’s a big board downstairs with wings on either side and you can do your jigsaw in the middle.

“There are all sorts of other proposals we’re discussing at the moment. There’s talk of ‘gin club’ and a lady who moved here from Spain thinks we ought to have a ‘laughter club’.

“I thought I was happy where I was, but I’m so much happier here. There’s always the possibility of company and I’m a very gregarious person. I settled in like a flash. I never gave a nostalgic thought to the house I had left, in spite of the fact that it was just what we wanted. I felt so at home here.”

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