Margaret and Keith

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Since moving to The Spindles in November 2023, Margaret and Keith have made new friends and enjoyed entertaining old ones.

Margaret: “It’s like an extended family. It really is a community. It’s amazing how popular we’ve become with friends visiting since we moved here. They come and have lunch with us in the restaurant. Once they’ve sampled the meals, they want to come again.”

Keith: “We’re entertaining more than we ever did when we lived in our bungalow.”

The early years

Keith grew up in Otley and Margaret is from Harrogate.

Margaret: “I joined the police when I was 20 and my first posting was in Otley. That’s where we met.”

Keith: “We got married when I was 28 and Margaret was 24. Our first homes were in Otley, but when Margaret got promoted and started working in Leeds, we moved there.

In our late fifties, we moved to a bungalow in Aberford and lived there for 24 years. The Spindles is now our fifth home.”

Margaret spent 30 years in the police force, while Keith worked in insurance.

Keith: “I was a senior life consultant, dealing with life insurance and pensions. I still read Money Week every week.”

Margaret retired at 50, and Keith at 53.

Deciding to move

Keith: “A long time ago, we were given some advice: to always move before you need to. Without children to help in later life, we thought ahead. Moving into a bungalow was part of that plan, and now we’ve moved to The Spindles while we’re still fit and independent. It’s a retirement community, not an old folk’s home, which is what makes it brilliant.”

Knowing there would be help on hand in an emergency was one aspect that appealed to Margaret.

Margaret: “A few years ago Keith had cancer and was going through chemo. One night he almost collapsed. I didn’t think he needed an ambulance, but it was one o’clock in the morning and I was thinking who do I ring? He recovered, but it got us talking about the future. We had some good neighbours, but they were going out to work and coming home, and we never saw them.

Keith: “Also, in the village where we lived, there were no facilities at all. When we first moved there, it had loads of shops and two doctors’ surgeries but over the years they had gone.

“We visited a few retirement communities, but most didn’t have 24-hour on-site support, and we didn’t like the apartments. When we visited The Spindles, we looked at one another and said, ‘this is nice’.

Margaret: “It oozed luxury and comfort to me. It’s like living in a five-star hotel.”

They opted for a part-exchange on their bungalow to simplify the process.

Margaret: “We came to look around towards the end of August and we moved in here in November.”

Keith: “A friend’s cash offer took 18 months to go through with no chain. We thought the part exchange was a brilliant way to avoid all that. You might receive 10% less than the market value, but Adlington offered incentives, making it worth it. It’s a good company to deal with. They’re very honest and we get very good service.”

Moving made easy

Keith: “The support you get with your move is fantastic too. We had a lady called Sarah from the Senior Move Partnership come to help us declutter. She was fantastic.

Margaret: “She measured up our furniture, checked if it would fit in the new apartment and created a plan.”

Keith: “On moving day she sent us off to enjoy a meal in the restaurant while she unpacked everything for us.”

Margaret: “It was fantastic.”

Keith: “We had no stress at all. We had a handyman to help us put the pictures up and everything. It was marvellous. We felt settled within the first week. Moving here was the best thing we did.”

A spacious apartment and inviting communal facilities

Margaret and Keith have plenty of room in their new apartment and enjoy using the communal facilities as an extension of their home.

Keith: “We have two bedrooms plus a study, and we’ve got a big living room. Our main bedroom is bigger than the one we had in our bungalow. We’ve made our second bedroom into a dining room, so we brought our dining table and everything. It’s nice and if anybody comes to stay, there’s a guest suite that we can book them into, which is fantastic.”

Margaret: “We use the coffee lounge and the homeowner’s lounge quite a lot. We got the paper this morning and came downstairs to read it.”

Keith: “We usually sit in the homeowner’s lounge. It’s amazing how many people know we’re in there. They come in and we all put our books down and chat away for an hour. It’s lovely.”

Margaret: “We use the restaurant four or five times a week.”

Keith: “I’ve brought a couple of friends in for breakfast. The food’s excellent, and the waitresses are great. We like all the staff. They’re always so helpful.”

Margaret: “I have a cut and blow dry every six weeks with the hairdresser in the salon here. She comes in on a Friday. We’ve started using the therapy suite for a chiropodist too. We utilise the activities studio for playing darts and dominos. We’ll be there tonight.”

Keith: “One of the homeowners uses it for painting, which is very popular. So, if we want to play bridge, we move into the homeowners’ lounge and put the card table up in there so that she can do the painting. There’s some really good stuff going on here.

“We’ve had two or three bands play. The ukulele band was good, and we had a swing night with a band playing Glenn Miller.”

Margaret: “On 1st August it’s Yorkshire Day, so we had a special coffee bar quiz to raise funds for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and made cakes.

Keith: “Adlington put on a do for the 1st birthday of The Spindles and that was fantastic.”

Margaret: “We’re having a Macmillan charity morning in September. They’re very well attended things like that.”

Gardens

Keith: “We love having a garden without the upkeep. The gardeners do a great job. There’s such a mixture of plants and there are four spindle trees.”

When the weather’s good, Margaret and Keith enjoy sitting outside in the communal areas or on their balcony and making the most of the beautiful gardens.

“We’re not members of the gardening club but we’ve had some flowers that they’ve grown. They put a notice up ‘help yourself to sweet peas’ and they did the same for the runner beans and for mint. They give the chef fresh herbs too. The homeowners who do it are really keen.”

A supportive team

Keith: “Having someone on site 24 hours a day is essential. We feel so secure here. It’s very good. You know that if you have a problem, there’s always somebody here to help whether it’s an emergency or just for advice.”

Margaret: “One of the duty managers is very good with technology and she regularly makes herself available to help.”

Keith: “The whole team are brilliant. They all have their strengths.

“Also, when we lived in our bungalow in Aberford we’d be lucky if we got post twice a week. Here we get it delivered every day and the posties come in and deliver to every apartment in the building. If you buy anything online, it used to be a problem for us because we liked to go out. Here, you can go out and when you come back it’s on your doorstep. It’s excellent.”

Margaret: “We have much more peace of mind here.”

Activities

Keith: “You can mix with others or keep to yourself – it’s entirely up to you. It’s just lovely that way.”

Margaret: “I’ll be going to the quiz this afternoon, which runs every fortnight. We’ve also started a little walking group going around the grounds and looking at the gardens. Yesterday there were about 10 of us. Keith was out with some friends, and when he came back, we were all having coffee after our walk. There were two of the duty managers there and Jane, the general manager, popped in. The atmosphere was brilliant.”

Keith: “That can happen any day. You know, laughter and chatting away. There are some lovely people here.”

“We’re playing darts and dominos tonight. We don’t go to it yet but Margaret’s thinking about going to the exercise classes. We usually don’t have the time to fit them in. We still carry on meeting our friends and one thing and another. We’re going out for lunch today. We have quite a few friends that we do that sort of thing with.”

Margaret: “We play bridge too.”

Keith: “We used to go to Wetherby Bridge Club, and we still go to Wetherby U3A bridge.”

Margaret: “We play online with a couple of ladies, and occasionally we play with two other homeowners here.”

Keith: “We have a good train service, which is a five-minute walk away and runs to Leeds, Bradford and Ilkley. We’ve been to a show in Ilkley at the King’s Hall and Winter Gardens and took the train.

“We usually keep Wednesdays free for us to go somewhere for the day.”

Margaret: “If we’re on our own, we go a bit further afield for a walk.

Keith: “We do brisk walking. We’ve always done it. About eight or nine miles was my maximum when I was in a walking group. But now we do a mile and a half every morning, and then we go out again on some days. We like walking. We’ve driven up to Burnsall in the Yorkshire Dales and walked up to Grassington. It’s lovely up there. We have a cup of coffee and then walk back.”

Margaret: “We’ve driven to Whitby, and we’ve walked from Sandsend into Whitby and back.”

Keith: “We had fish and chips. You can’t beat it.”

Travel

Since moving to The Spindles last year, Margaret and Keith have been to Tenerife, Benidorm and Split.

Margaret: “Since we moved here, we have much more peace of mind going on holiday and leaving our property than we did before.”

Some of their good friends who they met on holiday, and one former colleague and his wife, also live in Adlington Retirement Living communities at The Chimes in Cheadle, The Folds in Romiley and Jacobs Gate in Sheffield.

Keith: “We met Roy and Rita, who live at The Chimes now, on a Caribbean cruise for their silver wedding anniversary and it’s coming up to their diamond anniversary now.

Margaret: “We met Bob and Ann through Roy and Rita.”

Keith: “Bob and Ann are at The Folds, and we’ve been on flotillas with them in Croatia and the Ionian Sea as well as other holidays. Going on flotillas was brilliant. I was very dubious at first. Margaret’s more adventurous than me, and I said when we got there ‘If I don’t like it after day one, I’ll see you at the airport in the fortnight’ but I loved it. I was in charge of drinks, and they put Margaret in charge of the radio.

“There were nine yachts in the flotilla, and one was a lead, with a captain and an engineer, so if any of you had any trouble, you’d got support. Every morning we’d have a briefing meeting, and they’d tell us where we had to dock that day. And if you had any difficulty, you radioed in, but we didn’t have any difficulty. We only ever saw the other boats when we docked. When we left port, it felt like you were on your own.”

Margaret and Keith were already familiar with Adlington Life, having visited Roy and Rita at The Chimes.

Keith: “We visited Roy and Rita in their apartment at The Chimes, but we weren’t thinking of moving back then. They’ve been there for five year now. Bob and Ann moved to The Folds in Romiley after we moved in here.

Margaret: “All being well, Bob and Ann are coming over here for lunch next Thursday.”

“And then your ex-boss has been at Jacobs Gate, another Adlington retirement community in Sheffield, for a couple of years.”

Keith: “We were out for lunch with them a few months ago.”

“Because Roy and Rita were already living in an Adlington Retirement Living community, we obviously asked them about it, and they told us what they thought. They said, ‘well I hope you’re as happy as we are’.”

“And we are. We think it’s fantastic. We don’t ‘like’ living here. We love it.”

Margaret: “We got such a welcome. It felt like home straight away. We’re so happy and content. We were as soon as we came here.”

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