Being thoughtful never hurts

Being thoughtful never hurts

This is an article written for the #julyinleo writing prompt series with this delayed article being for being Day 18 ....

Today's topic could really does hit home!

Day 18! Charity begins at Home.
With the designated community being the wonderful ThoughtfulDailyPost

Brilliant topic ... I am huge fan of charity and most importantly being charitable! ...

Unconditional Giving ~ What a feeling

Many of you will know I am a big fan of manners and I believe it is a dying thing.

Mind your p's and q's is what I say ..

Are you a p and q sayer? Do you even know what the fluff I am on about!

Your please and thank you. And saying sorry or apologising, why do so many especially the younger ones not do this.

Hehe and then hi and bye, they don't do that anymore half the time either!

I digress....(well there's a shock ... not!)

I was brought up to give up my seat to women or the elderly, to help ladies across the road, to hold open doors for people and a whole wadge more ....

I mean it is common courtesy in my book and we should be doing as a matter of routine.

Talking of books ...

I normally donate my books I have read to a charity shop, although sometimes I use this big green bin....

... and speaking of charity ...

It is fun with a big F browsing through charity shops.These are run by charities and people volunteer their time. To me they are real charity shops. I have volunteered my time in the past for an animal one in another town, this post is spurring me on to see about volunteering in one of our local shops. Especially as last week we were in the Cancer UK one, and ran in to a woman from Mrs T's crochet club who has started volunteering there.

Charity begins at Home ... Which Home?

I live in Scotland in the UK. We have always had poverty in Scotland. We have always had undernourished children, we had a massive drug problem. Sex trafficking exists, child prostitution exists. I could on and on.

We have problems that need sorted. We have thosands of Scottish families in inadequate housing.

I remember seeing Billy Connolly the Scottish comedian at one of his shows years ago and he brought up an intriguing point...

We have all these problems in Scotland, kids starving etc so why are sending all this money to help people overseas when we can't even help our own people!

It might be an over exaggeration but you get the point.

So does charity begin in your house or your country?

I am a sucker for animals anywhere.

Here you can see our local pdsa charity shop.

PDSA is the vet charity for pets in need, working to keep people and pets together

I must admit I do love animals and quite often prefer the company of animals to people. Although being a Rangers football fan, many opponents say we are animals haha!

I am a sucker for a good cause, and my father took great delight in telling people that I would give a total stranger the shirt of my back.

Travelling the world working I had the pleasure to meet and get involved in several cultures and have sponsored animals and even people.

Once I got a reprimand from my father, about charity starting at home...

When I worked in Gabon, I was a fluffing nutter. Swam in croc infested lakes, jaunts into the jungle all that sort of thing.

One weekend we had a full weekend, so a few of decided it would be a great idea to take a dug out tree trunk wooden canoe with an outboard motor and go up the river and camp out somewhere.

We had a machete each, a couple of bottles of water and loads of bevvy... (Bevvy being Scottish for alcohol).

Long story short, we went for a walk into the jungle next morning and got lost and I mean truly death expecting lost.

We did find a village comprising four huts. They were so friendly and I went back a few times, and ended up sponsoring a sister and brother through school and then through University in France.

When I got divorced, my exwife won a £50 thousand pound settlement fee, which was quite a tall order to get the money together. During that time, my standing order for the kids tuition was rejected.

Father found out and went in his stern voice. Edward sort your self first laddie before you can sort others. I was in my twenties being treated like a kid lol.

So yeah, sort yourself first then you can be charitable in a monetary sense.

But you can always be thoughtful ....

Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed my response to the prompt.

Sources and Reference documents

This article is an entry for this month's Inleo writing initiative #julyinleo

You can find all the details in this thread

This prompt is Day 18 ! Charity begins at Home

All ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman TengoLoTodo unless otherwise stated, all photographs are all orginal and taken by me the author.