Christmas time is always busy ... when others are winding down and taking time off, we find ourselves getting busier. After our joint trip to Scotland we arrived home to visitors and during their stay Kenneth left again to go and work in Scotland. Malcolm and Jan, our visitors from France (though they're English) helped us with a variety of tasks including partitioning off our bedroom to make a room for Rosie. Jan impressed all the street kids with her practical abilities at the day centre - they're not used to seeing a woman fitting door handles and plumbing in a washing machine!When Malcolm and Jan left a small team from the UK arrived, primarily to help us distribute shoe boxes. Andrew from PCF charity in Wolverhampton came with his son, Richard and Tom, a youth worker from Liverpool came with two of his young people. They were a lovely group and as always we enjoyed having them around. They helped clear up the day centre courtyard which was a total disaster and they managed to check out a few bars in the evenings and have a couple of wild snowball fights!
While they were with us Kenneth arrived back from Scotland, complete with new hairdo. Just kidding, he bought a crazy hairpiece for a laugh ... it certainly made us laugh! The problem is, how can the rest of us be expected to take him seriously?
Now all the visitors have gone and we are still left with around a thousand shoe boxes and no help to deliver them. They will have to wait now until the new year. We have nothing prepared for our own family Christmas and we have at least 8 visitors coming on Christmas day. Not to mention our Christmas eve at the day centre when we will be expecting anything up to 50 street people and visitors ... help!
