Sailing Close to the Wind!

We are out in our little court-yard garden again now the weather has been so lovely. Mary, one of our volunteers, brought in some tomato plants, beans, lettuces strawberries and herbs. The clients really enjoyed all the planting and now we have to remember to water them every day. It is amazing to see the speed of how things are growing and this is such an encouragement to our clients and an incentive to do more.Last year we had a lot of pleasure from watching our seeds grow and then eating our crop and many clients ate fruit and vegetables they hadn’t eaten before. Clients find it, as any of us do who garden, immensely satisfying and relaxing. We await the fruit and veg with eager anticipation.

Sometimes in Bens it seems that we have a very surreal existence. Although it may seem that we are giving ourselves a pat on the back, we do some good things with our clients and achieve what might be often considered unattainable with our clients. We are dealing with clients that have a major addiction in their lives and all the subsequent baggage that comes with this addiction, yet we believe that each client is special and there is hope for each client too. We are walking on a knife-edge every day keeping the Centre open. We desperately need money to cover all the running costs. I doubt, and here I am sticking my head above the parapet, that anyone would be able to run this Centre on the money we have received, as efficiently or as well as our manager Wendy. This is the surreal part as if anyone came into the Centre, and infact they do and comment accordingly, you would never know that we were running on such a tight budget. Our aim has always to be to give our clients the best. This does not necessarily mean the most expensive but the best with our time, opportunity and vision to be able to break the destructive patterns in their lives. It’s a slow process but we are making a difference in lives and this is important. We keep hoping the ‘Secret Millionaire’ will visit but in the meantime we will do what we are best at and that is being tenacious and keeping going!