Though it was stressful at times in that I had to mask as it was meeting and taking payment from new people, I helped a charity one Christmas called Barnardos as my Mum had a job with them at one point. I was paid a low token pay just to make it worth the effort to cover my expenses, but the elderly guy I was working with soon made me feel welcome. I think it was for three weeks and was a day a week or two days a week? Saturday and/or sunday.
It was more one of those things one gets roped into because the charity can't find anyone else to do it and ones Mum is involved and volunteered me without me having much of a say about it! Haha! "It will be good for you" sort of thing.
So my task was to sit at the front of a Santas Grotto to take the money while the elderly man was dressed up as Santa. He did not need the beard as he had a grey beard of his own but he wore it anyway. But he made the job fun. If it was quiet and there were no children he would come out and stand dead still, and if someone went up to him assuming he was a statue (Which happened often) he would suddenly spring to life and give them a fright. It was hillarious!
Oh. I don't know why but every kid that went in burst into tears on seeing him. Ok. I used to as a kid! Not sure why. I was frightened, and maybe other kids are too?
But the highlight of the day at this garden centre was when he went for a break outside and I was seated next to the indoor grotto (Inside the main garden centre greenhouse) and some young kids came running in to their parents saying "Mum! Dad! We saw Father Christmas smoking a cigar in the car park!" Poor kids!
And I do remember another thing. They had a large battery operated train running on plastic track. One if those cheap trainsets which is either G scale or close to it. It impressed me as in all those hours that it ran, only once were the batteries changed and it was very reliable! It impressed me!
23 Jul 2020, 5:01 am
