Canny Ian swept away all of Robert’s troubles

RobeRt is an educated man.

He teaches a class at the local community centre. Ian is the caretaker of the centre.

They usually only exchange pleasantries but last week Robert mentioned a problem he’s been having.

Ian leaned his broom against the wall. He broke the WHEN I met Larry he wasn’t a happy man. After a long hard week at work he’d been looking forward to relaxing on his day off. Then he remembered he had volunteered to help at the homeless shelter – which meant getting up early and not getting finished until midday.

As he talked about how tired he was and how he only had the one day off I said: “You’re a hero!”

“I’m an ungrateful moaner, is what I am,” he replied. “I have it so much better than the guys in the shelter and all I’ve done is complain.”

“Yet,” I was happy to point out, “here you are – on your way there!”

An ungrateful moaner who still gets up in the morning to help others will always be a hero in my book. problem down, guessed (accurately) at some of the causes, then laid out some courses of action, each suited to different personalities and approaches, showing some surprising insight, and giving Robert real hope for the first time in a long time.

Then he carried on sweeping.

“Never look down on someone because of their job,” Robert told me.

“Stacking chairs or sweeping floors might not be the only talents they have.”

I have regularly found that to be the case! AMY’S college course starts this week. Do you know what she’s going to miss most once she’s at classes full-time? Sitting around doing nothing?

Now, before you say “typical teenager” I should explain. As often as she could over the summer Amy would take a book to George Square in the centre of Glasgow. But she rarely read.

Instead she would people-watch, amazed by the variety of the passers-by, wondering about their lives and being endlessly fascinated by why they did what they did.

“So, you’ll miss that,” I suggested, “when you are studying... what?” “Psychology,” Amy answered. Ahh! So, she wasn’t really sitting doing nothing. It was “prep”.

We welcome our summer visitors,

As they go flying high, Just watch their acrobatics,

So pleasing to the eye. Skimming low over river and stream,

Until it’s time once more, For our swallows to southward fly, To spend winter on a warmer shore.