I'M BEGINNING TO ENJOY THESE "NO HOUSEWORK" DAYS!

You may remember that I told Mr. HCB a few weeks ago that if he bought any more jigsaw puzzles, then he had to sort out some of the ones he had upstairs - and wonder of wonders, he did just that.

However, our lovely next door neighbour, Lynn, has also been sorting out jigsaw puzzles, so this morning, in the pouring rain, we drove up to our favourite charity shop, DEBRA, to deposit the said puzzles - before Mr. HCB had a chance to snaffle a few and secrete them upstairs!  

We told Sarah, the Manager of the shop, that we would be back after we had had a cup of coffee at Jack’s.  However, before we went back, we had a look around a local  card shop, where we, sorry I, got chatting to a man named Mike, so we were telling him about DEBRA.  He was very interested, so after our chat, followed us round to the shop and was happy to buy a couple of the jigsaw puzzles that we had just taken in there!  Sarah was delighted and said I should go out on the street and encourage people to come in!  She then gave me the lovely little “badge”, which is normally reserved for volunteers and those who work in the shop, but she was so pleased with all my efforts that she decided I could have one.  Mike was there when she pinned it on to my anorak and said it was well deserved - so I am thrilled - because when I was younger I never ever got a Blue Peter badge, but I now have a DEBRA blue butterfly badge.  In fact, it was interesting that Mike told us he used to suffer badly with eczema on his hands, and still does to a degree, so even from that, he realised how painful the condition must be.

I did tell Mike about the book that a friend, Wendy Skerry, who is also a volunteer in the shop, has written about her daughter, Heather - "The Life of Heather May".  Heather suffered with EB and sadly died a little while before her 30th birthday in 2020.  Unfortunately, they had no copies in the shop, but I'm sure Mike may be back there, so who knows - he may buy one at some point.  

DEBRA stands for Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association, and is a national charity and patient support organisation for people living with the rare, extremely painful, genetic skin blistering condition, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) also known as “Butterfly Skin” hence the butterfly badge.

Mr. HCB and Mike were chatting away when Mike said that we had made his day.  I told him that was a lovely thing to say and we were pleased about that.  Isn’t that what life is all about - making someone smile, chatting to someone and even doing a good turn if you can.  Mr. HCB used to be very shy and would walk away when I chatted to people, but now I think even he realises that life is much better if you grab it with both hands and live in the moment.  You just never know who you are going to meet and I believe we can all make a difference in someone’s life.

My collage shows a shot of the window at DEBRA - with my butterfly badge in the top left corner;  their windows are always beautifully done and this one is no exception put together by the volunteers.  I know it’s still 47 days until Christmas, but the Christmas adverts are on the television and again, perhaps we just need to embrace all that this season means - peace and goodwill to everyone.  For us, as Christians, it means so much more, but that’s a good starting point!

Enjoy the rest of your week.  M xx 

P.S.  Whilst off-loading our boxes, Sarah gave me some more soft toys to join the Silly Saturday Gang - this is getting ridiculous - they will soon need a room of their own but if they do, I’m going to start charging them rent!