Birthday girl

This evening we celebrated LD's birthday with a great meal at a newish restaurant in Lichfield. The owner and chef used to work at a Michelin-starred place in Birmingham and is aiming for the stars himself. I have to say that the taster menu was superb and none of us had anything we didn't like, even though the ingredients might never have been a first choice. Even beetroot tasted great!

LH and I had a free day so visited the Museum of Making in Derby's old silk mill. I was disappointed that there was nothing much on display about the silk making (most of the equipment was stripped out when the building was repurposed) and the other displays were confusing jumbles of things lumped together by the material from which they were made. No labels in this section as to what items were which really annoyed me. I must've missed the point completely as I found no insights other than Derby was a big seat of manufacturing in times past and I knew that already.

So to calm the irritated nerves we visited Derby cathedral. Dad and I attended a superb concert there in Feb 2019 and I remembered it as a place of elegant beauty and space. It was a perfect antidote to the museum and all that a place of spiritual contemplation should be. I lit candles for our parents and looked through to a stained glass window depicting All Souls and the struggle between light and darkness (extra). It was a good place to sit and reflect for a while.