Enjoy Francis Gay’s Week on

Some DIY centres actually ran out of cement in recent weeks.

People, unable to spend their savings on foreign holidays, stayed home and laid patios, remodelled gardens, built extensions, etc.

Layla put her holiday money to a different use. She delved into public records, travelled to registry offices, and even hired an investigator.

You see, her mother, already disowned by her family, died in an accident when Layla was a baby. Her new parents were wonderful, but she always wondered about her natural family.

Last week, she travelled from Shropshire to Edinburgh, where she found more family than she ever expected and a welcome beyond her most optimistic hopes.

So, while others were cementing bricks, Layla cemented relationships. While others were building extensions, Layla built a new family for herself and her children.

His face was gaunt, he walked with a stoop. He said he had broken ribs and memory loss.

He carried an old suitcase. He was too late for a food bank parcel but he took away some fresh produce which he put into his suitcase via a hole torn in its side. I shook his hand and wished him all the best. He said: “I hope things get better for you too, mate!”

It took me a minute. I was wearing old clothes because I’d been doing some work in the building. I was covered in tile-cement. My clothes were liberally splashed with paint.

He didn’t know what I’d been doing, or that I had other clothes at home.

And, likewise, I had no idea what brought him to this point in his life.

Judge not! I said, “Thank you, Andy. I really appreciate that!” And my day did get better.

For as long as she can remember, Maureen has been afraid of cats. She would cross the road to avoid one and couldn’t be in the same house as one.

“It’s not as if a cat ever did me a bad turn,” she told me. “I probably inherited the fear, which made it all the more difficult to shake. Because it was completely irrational, I couldn’t argue my way out of it.”

Now she has a kitten called Rainy. “He turned up on my window ledge, soaked and terrified during a thunderstorm.

“I tried to find his owner, I tried to find someone else to take him away. I left him out there for quite a while...for far too long...but he kept crying.”

And now Maureen hopes Rainy’s owner never turns up.

She’s made a friend for life. As for her fear – compassion was the cure!

Grief is not a thing we get better at with practice. Our first loss of a close family member is apt to knock most of us sideways.

Not knowing how we are supposed to respond, our responses will often be as surprising to us as they are to others.

Jenny was feeling like all of that when, a week after her dad died, she posted on Facebook: “You know you’re not coping well when you burst into tears because you’re out of hot chocolate!”

And, how are the rest of us supposed to respond to that kind of thing?

Well, one very wonderful friend sent a packet of hot chocolate by next-day delivery.

Grief is something we each work our way through by ourselves, but having friends take up the slack and deal with the everyday losses for us while we deal with the big one is such a help.

Prepare a lovely dinner, Season it with care, Sprinkle love within it, and if you can, then share.

It needn’t be a banquet, But with kindness it’s been made,

Serve it up with happiness,

Then friendship you’ve displayed.