As today is Saturday it generally means just one thing, football. In fact, at this time of year football seems to take over my life even though I don't play. So after depositing Master Grumpy at the training ground I decided I'd go for a mooch around the shops in Whittlesey. Now depending on how picky you are over your shops, this could take a few minutes or like for me today an hour or so. The locals had cause to get excited recently as they got their first pound shop, I even remember my friend Denise saying she was going to go and visit it on her lunch break, I really need to get her out more...
They have also just got an Original Factory Shop, which conjures up an image of loads of other factory shops that of course can't possibly be original. I wandered around the said shop, spending at least 20 minutes in there, picking things up and then putting them down again. Maybe going back down an aisle for a second fondle, of the goods you understand, only to replace them carefully on the shelf and leave empty handed. I really could have used those new coasters, only £1 for 4.
Another exciting addition is Boots, it used to be just an ordinary pharmacy but now it holds it's head proud and is emblazoned with the big blue logo, no doubt it also has the big Boots prices too. As always on a Saturday, I pop in to the supermarket, Somerfield, though all the own brand product labels say Cooperative, interesting, and pick up 4 lovely, fresh panini rolls for our lunch. Mmm, I love mine toasted with ham and melted cheese.... anyway, it's on this bit of my journey each week that my life has changed.
I've always been quite opinionated about beggars and homeless people, in fact I'd go so far as to say I'm ashamed of how I've thought in the past. As I've grown older and hopefully a little wiser, I have softened and I guess matured. I now realise that lots of these people really, genuinely have nowhere else to go, why else would they choose to live their lives this way? For many years as I walked past W H Smith in Peterborough, I would see a man selling the Big Issue, of course I never bought one, but I was always polite and said no thank you. The seller, small, dirty, thin, ginger hair and bearded man would always thank me in return for acknowledging him. One day as I walked along, I had decided that today I would buy a Big Issue from him, I had given his situation some thought, guess what, he wasn't there. I felt awful, I'd missed my chance to do something half decent for someone, there wasn't even someone else standing in his spot that I could give my money too. Every time after that I looked for him, and I mean for many months, I wondered if he was OK? A replacement seller did appear but actually looked clean and well fed and was always surrounded by others.
Imagine my surprise when about a month ago as I walked to purchase my paninis, I heard that most recognisable voice, "Big Issue madam?" It was him. So I gave him his pound but declined the magazine, and now every time I see him I give him something, depending on how close pay day is. And as I go in and out of the various shops and I pick something up and wonder whether to buy it, I ask myself if I really need it, not for the sake of saving a few pounds but if it's going to sit in the back of some cupboard I'd rather give the money to my ginger bearded friend. Oh, and for those of you that are saying, "he probably spends it on drink or fags or worse" I don't actually care! If that's something that gives his hard and cold life a little bit of sunshine then good on him.
So you Whittleseyites, keep out of the myriad of awful shops that you've been blessed with in town and occasionally give thought to my little friend, even if you don't feel like buying the Big Issue, maybe you could at least acknowledge you've heard him when he speaks to you.
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