The hats!

Not our intention...

Before you read this, I just want to say that I have nothing derogatory to say about the homeless. For my A-Level media, many moons ago, I did a project on this area as I think it is something that is misunderstood. The information pack (it was before the days of internet research) sent by the charity Shelter was informative and taught me that there can be many reasons why someone can become homeless, and that we shouldn't judge. So, please know, that the following blog post is meant with no malice and is just a true recount of something that happened...

In December, X and I headed off on a girls weekend away. We decided to travel by coach and her husband dropped us off at the coach station (after nearly dropping us at the wrong location, but thankfully my sense of where I am etc is good) and we made our way to a location that we had chosen for its scenery and Christmas atmosphere/activities.

After a Carol concert, as it was rather chilly and we'd had a long morning of travel, we took a rest in some pews. X had got us light up beanie hats as the walk back to the hotel would be quite dark. Us being us, we took a selfie. As I waved at the camera to take the photo, I started to ponder upon what I could see.

"X, we look a bit like homeless people," I commented to her.

We took another photo and then X viewed them and replied, "You're right, we do...it's the hats!"

"Plus all the layers we are wearing - whoops!"

A while later, a man entered the part that we had chosen to rest in. He had a brief look around and then saw us sitting there. He looked at us, and then he looked like he felt a bit uneasy and left.

Immediately, X and I thought the same! We DID look homeless and that he hadn't known what to do. This echoes my initial opening paragraph... 

After discussing that our bags (we'd also been shopping) likely didn't help, we both commented that imagine if he had offered us money!

Looking back at the photos now - and having shown our families since - we still think it and clearly the man did too. However, in the image below, it's not so obvious due to the use of avatars over our faces.

Next week, read about the next day of our trip when we got all dressed up for lunch...then that went wrong too!