Categories: uncategorized
Date: 18 September 2006 14:24:02
I came home to a bag of groceries.
I'd been at work, and had finished early to pick the kids up from school. And when we arrived home there was a supermarket bag on our doorstep. A few times we've come home to find things left there - usually bags with a few toys being passed on, or some clothes. But this had some groceries in. Luxury items really - biscuits and stuff that you wouldn't buy if you were on a tight budget, but stuff that you'd really appreciate.
Up until two days before that we had been very short of money. Well, okay, not very short of money - a long, long way from the poverty line. But feeling short of money compared with our spending. For a few years we'd been feeling more and more tight, and it had been (along with a few other things) causing a lot of stress and tension in the family. So the gift of a bag of groceries was really, really kind. Even now I don't know who it came from (possibly someone here?) because the few guesses I had turned out to be wrong. Part of me really wants to know who it was, because I really want to say how much it was appreciated. But most of me respects the right to privacy and I'm a big fan of anonymous giving.
But there's also a profound irony. Just two days before the bag showed up, we had been given a huge sum of money. Well, not exactly given, but that's more or less what it amounted to. The money was there, where it hadn't been before, we hadn't had to sell the kids to get it, and we were no longer short of cash which was very nice. And lately the money has just kept pouring in, with one bizarre thing after another swelling our bank balance. Just last week I got another very large cheque, more or less out of nowhere. It's just getting silly. A few weeks ago I was writing a cheque and I had to stop part way through because I was sure it shouldn't have had so many zeros in the amount. I was wrong. We keep thinking that it would have been so much handier if this stuff could have arrived a year or two ago when we were so skint. But I guess if we hadn't had to learn to cope with a little then we probably wouldn't now be so clueless about what to do with all our riches, and we'd have spent it before we noticed. I just hope I can spend it all before I start worrying about what to spend it on we can spend it all sensibly.