IT'S THURSDAY...

...so it must be Community Fridge at Gorse Hill Baptist Church!  I did remember to take some photographs today before everyone came in, so you can see plenty of odd bits and pieces, bread rolls - and we had lots of bread and rolls, and cakes and biscuits.  Who knew that McVitie’s Dark Chocolate Digestive biscuits had a BBF date on them?  I was very surprised and believe me, they soon went!

They are often weird and wonderful things on the “odd bits” table - various teabags and coffee, rice, breakfast cereal and some even stranger things like fish tea!  Mind you, they must appeal to someone, because there wasn’t much left on that table at the end of the session either.

We had lots of bread again and on the “free” table, which means  that it doesn’t count as one of their five items - I wonder how supermarkets over-bake or over-order such a lot of bread?  Well, at least it does us good at the Community Fridge.

For several weeks now we have had work being done on the roof - a very expensive job, but of course, with all the rain, the roofers have been very hampered, but it should be finished quite soon.  Today we had some cleaning contractors working on cleaning both the outside and inside of the building.  They were great guys and you can see three of them with Pete, our own Facilities Manager - he’s the one smiling and wearing a blue hard hat.  What lovely fellas they were - and very appreciative of the cup of coffee and donut I took out to them, as you can see at the top left.

I rather liked the shot of the banners advertising what goes on at the Church, which is quite high up - and you can see someone working on the roof in silhouette - not quite sure who that was, but I don’t think it was Pete - although he has been known to “tread the tiles” on the roof.

I haven’t shown the photograph of the three boxes of mushrooms that I bagged - and what a mucky job that was - I was told that I could have worn rubber gloves, but it’s far easier to just use hands!  However, it took a lot of scrubbing to get the bits and particularly the smell off my hands - so perhaps I should have worn them.

I spent some of my time during the morning in the kitchen and some nattering to our lovely customers.  One of them was busy crocheting squares and was happily chatting away as she worked and H, one of the volunteers, was just starting to make a pair of socks - however, when I last looked, she had only cast on the stitches, so not much progress there.

It always amazes us how several of the men, who never knew one another before they started coming to the Community Fridge, have formed close friendships and always sit together - and they say women talk!!  Anyway, at the very end of the session, several of them are always happy to have an extra cup of coffee - and of course, we don’t charge for that.  Why would we, when it would just be tipped away if they didn’t drink it?  We are also very grateful to them because they always clean the tables, stack the chairs and then put the tables away into the cupboards.  Thank you, gentlemen - we really do appreciate what you do.

So it was then home after I had done a little shopping - I wondered how the lady who served me knew my name, as she said “Thank you, Maureen”, then realised I had left my name badge on!  I must confess I have had a little nap, so now I need to get our evening meal.  

A great session today and almost the end of another week.  Hope you have all had a good day - it has been a beautiful sunny day - hope it lasts over the weekend.  M xx