IT'S ALL RELATIVE

Yesterday evening there was a bit of a commotion in the local garage when I went to pick up a few groceries, it seems that someone had stolen a cancer charity collection box! I felt really sorry for the women working in the shop because they thought that they were going to get into trouble from the owner of the shop.
How could anyone possibly steal something like that?
I am totally baffled.
I know that my thoughts are not totally mainstream on a lot of things but that is totally unacceptable. I could understand if somebody was totally without money and stole groceries for their children but this is different. Thankfully I have never been in a situation where I have felt compelled to steal to feed my children.
And what would the person who stole the money spend it on anyway?
These charity boxes are placed in such a way in shops so you put your 'shrapnel'(spare change-coppers) in when you receive your change after paying. So how much could possibly be in one of these boxes? Not a lot!
Don't get me wrong, I really believe that there can be situations that arise that you have no control over that can leave you financially desperate(and yes I have been there) but I also believe that some of the situations are created by the individuals themselves.
A few years ago, a few days before Christmas, I took my children into a charity shop to look at second-books and whilst we were there a young mother came in with her 3 small children and asked the shop assistant if they had any toys for sale. I was devastated to see this young mother trailing her children around charity shops just before Christmas looking for toys as there was nothing I could do for her and God only knows what had happened to bring her to this situation.
However their 'poverty' was nothing compared to the beggars that asked me for money in the Moscow train station when we were waiting for the train to St Petersburg. The toilets in the station were not very disability friendly and were at the bottom of a huge stair case so I waited at the top with Beauty whilst Anastasia and SnoWhite went down and I went down when they came up. Whilst I was waiting a gypsy woman with her 2 small children asked me for money but I didn't have any so I gave her children some pink iced buns that we had bought that day and were going to eat on the train journey. The iced buns had literally cost pennies but the children's faces lit up like they had never seen anything like it before and when Anastasia came up I asked her if she had any change and she gave me a few pennies which was enough to buy bread for the family for 2 days. The mother of the children was almost in tears with what we had given her but it made me feel awful that she should have so little.
I also feel that 'poverty' or what defines it has changed since I was a child. When I was growing up we gad a rented TV and that was it but today the list of what an individual has in their house is endless..............TV(PLASMA MAYBE , DVD, computers, laptops, I pods , Mp3's, sound systems, video games consuls etc. Whilst I was going around visiting with the Health Visitors when I was doing my nurses training we visited a family who were recently on benefits and were having a hard time but the only thing the health visitor could comment on when we left the property were the amount of videos the family had. Even if they had sold them they wouldn't have got much for them, a tenner if they were lucky.
However, I also visited some families who had been on benefits for many years and they lived in luxury and I can remember thinking, 'I want whatever they are having'.
I am with Andrew Collins who wrote the book WHERE DID IT ALL GO RIGHT, I hate miserable childhood stories. I am sorry but I had a miserable childhood, no I don't want to write about it and publish a book and yes forgetting the bad bits of my past is fine by me but I do feel that poverty today is relative in this country compared to what it was when I was a child.
No child in this day and age should be reared in poverty and any government who allows it to happen has failed. Today I read about

Hospices warning of service cuts
Hospices have warned they may have to turn away terminally ill patients in Wales because of a funding crisis.The Hospice of the Valleys in Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent which provides palliative care said it would have to cut services unless it was "properly funded".

And the following article

You are just left alone'
Shirley Nurock talking about her husbands dementis care
She said there was a desperate need for better support for people with dementia and their families."You do not get much help from state services, and voluntary services are overstretched and pushed for cash. It made me angry and I am still angry now.
"Services are really fragmented. People w'ith dementia are being rationed. Its criminal.
"Basic care should be seen as a necessity.

There seem to be cuts and problems with funding everywhere.

Dirty, badly maintained streets, cuts in social and health care , inadequate educational provision etc

Monday, 4 December 2006, 11:51 GMT BBC News
Anger at MPs' '66% pay rise call'
MPs have been criticised after reports some are calling for a 66% pay rise, taking salaries to £100,000 a year.MPs are reported to have written to the Senior Salaries Review Board saying the rise is needed to bring them into line with senior civil servants and GPs.

I wonder if the MP's are happy with the funding for their salaries?
If they are then at least somebody is happy with the way government money is being spent.

Re-reading this entry I think perhaps it comes across as confused but I think probably that is because I covered so many issues, probably badly..........sorry. I think that even if I didn't have a child that was autistic and fighting for better educational and social provision for her then I would still be fighting for someone or something. Perhaps I get that from my Dad!
Richard Bach said the following in The Reluctant Messiah
Here is a test to know if your work on earth is done.........if your alive, it isn't.
That's how I feel, there's always something more to do.