What would you spend the money on if you won the lottery? At some point most people must have thought about what they would do if they won a few million on the lottery
Depending of course on how much you won, maybe buy a bigger house, a new car, put some away for the kids when they are older or if they are older, give them some. Treat you family, your Mum and Dad, travel the world, the possibilities are probably endless.
Local Authorities are obliged to provide shelter for rough sleepers if the overnight temperature falls below zero for three nights running, many Authorities pay local charities to provide this service on their behalf. NOAH is a local charity in Luton, that works across a range of services for homeless and vunerable people, including providing meals, clothes, and somewhere to shower. They also run the night shelter for rough sleepers. Unfortunately their premises are not extensive enough to be used for the night shelter so they hire out other local facilities for this and they do it every night when the temperature is liable to go down to freezing or below.
My dream, if I even won the lottery would be to replace NOAH's current old, inadequate premises, with a new building for them so that they could do all that they currently do and more, all in the same place...... The only flaw with this, is I don't do the Lottery!
At the present time, I don't know what, if anything is being provide for rough sleeperss on freezing winter nights. I was involved for a while on the provision of the night shelter, but not for the past couple of years. I am pretty sure that nothing is being provided due to the pandemic and the risk of the spread of Covid 19. I was hearten to find an article online the other week about a facility in Stoke that had been running a shelter for the homeless prior to the pandemic, having had to close, they found an ingenious solution.
They bought 49 Glamping Pods and installed them in a warehouse, fitted them all with a bed and bedding and a lockable door. They were even able to install a TV in each one, enabling the person with access to news and entertainment. This also provided them with an address that they could give to either a prospective employer or to the Job Centre. This whole thing had been set up and was being run by Former Professional Footballer, Lou Macari. Having seen an article on the local news about the fact that there were very few rough sleepers in Stoke, he went for a walk one evening and pretty soon spotted quite a few and decided to do something about it.
At present I'm not a former professional Footballer and I'm never going to win the Lottery but I would, one day, like to find a way to provide NOAH with a new building and the rough sleepers somewhere to shelter.
Would you believe it, just a few short days after I wrote this, we had a big discussion about it at work. One of the guys was saying what he would do if he won the £180M Euromillions lottery that evening. The big talking point was not that he would give us all £1M, but that he would give his soon to be ex-wife a couple of million. His argument was, so that she could use it provide a better life for his children as he thought it unfair that he should live a life of luxury and they should just scrape be. Although obviously he would treat them and put money in a trust fund for them when they were older. Most of the other guys said she should get nothing, stuff her! He did point out the fact that they were still married and technically she would be entitled to half, this seemed to end the conversation. I just thought it was ironic that I had been writing about the very subject justa couple of days earlier.
Good news on the job front, the removal company that I had been doing the odd day for, have offered me a permanent position. With the Stamp Duty Holiday we are fairly busy and obviously we are hoping that even when that ends the work will carry on at the same sort of rate. So I'm officially a Removal Man now! The trouble with being out at work most days is I'm not getting any of the jobs on the list done, although to be fair I haven't crossed anything off of the list since New Year (until today, I managed to do a job from the list!).
Tranmere Rovers are on their way to Wembley! I'm conscious that I haven't mentioned football lately, but Tranmere have reached the Final of the EFL Trophy, currently known as the Papa John's Trophy, where we will play Sunderland. We have won this particular piece of silverware before, back in 1990, when we beat Bristol Rovers to win what was then called the Leyland DAF Cup. We lost the final the following year to Birmingham City. This will be our 4th trip to Wembley in 5 seasons, although unfortunately this time, the Super White Army will not be allowed to go! The Final is on Sunday 14th March, last years Final between Portsmouth and Salford City, which was postponed due to the pandemic will be played on the Saturday and I'm assuming that they are still playing for the Leasing.com Trophy.
That will be quite strange as many of the players who won the trip to the final will have moved on and will now not be able to play. Tranmere's Danny Lloyd is one such player, he was at Salford last season and played 4 games in the EFL Trophy.
On the subject of Road Signs, namely temporary signs that have not been removed long after they should have. I have, since my last missive, been round and checked most of the sites where the very well out of date 'New Road Layout Ahead' or 'New Roundabout Ahead' signs had been left long after, years after in fact, they should have been removed and lo and behold not only are many of them still there, but I've also found some more. I obviously made my checks whilst on legally acceptable journeys (travelling to work, shopping or caring for the vunerable).
I will of course now send my findings once again to the local authority, I also managed to find a copy of my previous letter which was dated October 2017, lets see if we get any action this time! I might even cc the local newspaper!