The first of October, International Day of Older Persons, arrived with just enough drizzle to make everyone glad of an excuse to end up somewhere with a hot drink in hand.

Welston marks this important day with paperwork, pavements and power tools, in roughly that order.

First came What’s on Your Door, a door-to-door survey of what sits within reach of the town’s older residents and how easily they can get to it: shops, surgeries, a decent bench to catch your breath on.

Then the Walking Audit, in which a small delegation of elderly residents and one increasingly damp council engineer toured the town assessing crossings, seating and the whereabouts of a public toilet when you need one rather more urgently than the council’s signage suggests.

The heavens opened somewhere around the market square, and the entire party diverted into the Bookish Barista. Coffees and cake were consumed at a leisurely pace entirely unrelated to the ongoing downpour outside, and the bill—I’m reliably informed—was settled by the council’s engineering department, apparently on the grounds that a walking audit interrupted by weather is still, technically, an audit.

Then, finally, the ceremonial opening of the new Men’s Shed, tucked into the park beside the Station Community Centre: a proper workshop with a proper social area, tea and coffee laid on, built for men who live alone and could do with somewhere to go that isn’t the sofa. The shed is equally open to any man whose wife has been suggesting, with mounting firmness, that he get out from under her feet.

I put my head round the door mid-afternoon expecting sawdust and found instead a room of men nursing mugs of tea, deep in conversation and dominos, the workshop behind them standing in pristine condition.

Later this month brings the Stars in Their Eyes Concert, in which Welston’s over-60s take to the stage as George Michael, Doris Day, Elvis, Madonna, Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John and Dame Shirley Bassey, with proceeds going toward next year’s elderly-related projects. St John Ambulance will be on standby for the evening — whether for the dancing or Sunil Pohil’s Elvis hip action.