Tuesday was a lovely day weather wise so shame I was cooped up for most of it.  Collected Joanna and we set off to Chesterfield for the Derbyshire Federation WI Spring Council Meeting.  This is the first one I have attended and I was attending as Over Haddon’s delegate so I had to take notes.  It was a very interesting meeting.  After singing Jerusalem we had a speech from the Chairlady and Treasurer then the first of the two morning speakers, the first being the Editor of Derbyshire Life Magazine which is 80 years old  this year.  She gave us the history of the magazine and told us about how the magazine gets published each month with a small team.  The second speaker was the Operations Manager of the National Trust for the Dark Peak and he told us about the work being done on Kinder Scout (old Saxon name meant water over the edge) to restore the peat bogland to its proper state. Time for lunch and time for a bit of fresh air before returning for the afternoon session.  First there was any official business with various prizes and certificates before our afternoon speaker.  This was Mr Stephen D Smith aka ‘the Rumpole of Rotherham’ who gave us an hilarious account of how he became a Solicitor and some of the more famous clients he has represented.  Wednesday was mainly cloudy with a cold north easterly wind at our peak district cottages but it did brighten up later.  Not that it mattered as we went to IKEA then onto the outlet centre at Junction 28 (to stock up on choccies!).  In the evening it was WI committee.  Chris is going to be a WI widower this month!