street life

Monday Madness – SOS

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 32 Comments

You may think Southbourne-on-Sea a fairly benign place, no bears or lions and no murders most weeks, but danger still lurks everywhere.

You can easily fall in when you take your discarded garments to the recycling bin…

Or trip and fall into an open grave.

Mown down by a three year old or ninety three year old on their scooters or any age on E-Scooters ?

Attacked by a pack of Woolly XS dogs…

Then there is the unexpected threat from nature in spring… the other day I was walking down the road and by unfortunate coincidence passed by at the exact moment a crow was chasing other birds away from attacking a bird in the gutter; it’s baby probably, though there is no CCTV evidence. It presumed I was part of the attack and dive bombed my head twice, drawing blood, though not enough to cause a visible drama. There were no human witnesses, no photo opportunities for Facebook, one of the rare occasions when I wasn’t dodging other pedestrians with phones in their hands.

I did think of reporting this on local social media, but knowing the thousands of comments, arguments and blame that wild birds and grounded baby birds usually evoke, I did not. Looking up on the internet it seems attacks are not uncommon if humans are too close to nesting crows. Though of course it could be the start of birds taking over the world… Scarier is the fact that crows are very intelligent and remember individual humans, so perhaps I can never walk down that regular route again.

All crows in this blog are played by actors. The Corvid Community would like to point out that they never attack humans and all allegations are totally unfounded.

Have you ever been the victim of a bird attack?

Big Christmas Issues

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It’s hard to believe three years have gone by since I wrote a blog about the Big Issue. A lot has changed since then, Bob the Cat has become famous… and a lot has not changed. The price of a Big Issue is the same, £2.50 and £3.00 in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Sellers buy it for half that price.  Homeless people are still with us. Not all Big Issue sellers are homeless, but I’m pretty certain they are not living at the better end of the housing market.

James, the chap I bought my first Big Issue from, was on his pitch for a good while and was easy to chat to; Big Issue sellers are as varied as any group of people and the ones standing up, who are easy to talk to make it more comfortable. It is better to be looking up to someone as an ordinary person earning a living, than looking down on someone huddled on the pavement.

One day James wasn’t there any more, then another chap, Mark, appeared and said James had got a job and a place to live. The page I first turn to is the seller of the week, giving a glimpse into lives on a positive note. Mark has somewhere to live, but it doesn’t sound very secure or salubrious.

Of course the issues remain the same as in my first blog, you pass other Big Issue sellers and feel guilty because you already have this week’s edition. We have a woman at our local shops who I often buy from and have ended up buying the same issue from her and Mark. But buying the Big Issue is a much simpler issue than our attitude to the homeless or those who approach you asking for money.

Shoppers, eyes lowered, pass hurriedly by people huddled in shop doorways; they are embarassed or not sure, or wonder why people from all over the world have jobs in their local shops and restaurants, while this young able bodied person is just sitting in a doorway. Perhaps they would rather spend their hard earned money buying goods for the food bank box. The local council has homeless outreach teams, but people aren’t always easy to help. On local Facebook groups it is always a topic guaranteed to raise disagreement; give food or money? Genuine or con artist?

If we have very cold weather this happens…

Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP)

St Mungo’s, the rough sleeper team, will be making every effort to offer shelter to all people sleeping rough during extreme weather.

Does that make us feel less guilty because we know for sure  something is being done?

 

As for the magazine, it is a good read, so if you have never bought a copy try it, spalsh out three pounds on a Christmas edition. The cover in the picture was the winner of a competition for children to design a cover and had many entries.

Read my blog from 2016.

https://tidalscribe.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/christmas-issue/