914 Shopping and a little garden kindness

Sometimes we hear third sector workers speaking of people with ‘chaotic lives’. If I’d never heard that definition I think I would have originated it for this couple. I think they’d agree.

I have a lot of love for them, I really do, I’ve been taking them both food and support for about 5 years, they even came to Church with me one time and really enjoyed it. But their lives are so disordered that such events are the exception. Almost every time I visit there’s a crisis. It’s partly them, partly their family, partly their acquaintances and ‘friends’, partly their history and lives and mental and physical health and complicated compilations of all of the above. And partly poverty, which turns a missing £20 into a week’s worth of drama. Everything escalates everything else.

As well as shopping I try to bring peace, and spiritual guidance, and reassurance, and what most of us would call normality. On this occasion I also brought pots and compost and topsoil and plants to make a little garden with them. I know they will enjoy that. I bought flowers, and a tomato plant, and hoped they would enjoy the process of potting them. Unfortunately, when I got there, they were either out, or incapacitated, and I ended up doing the work on my own and leaving them a doorstep garden, needing nothing more than watering and love.

Thank you monthly supporters for making this good deed happen, and for supporting this couple in need. It cost around £100 all together, the food, the pots, the compost, the plants. You are a blessing.