Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

Coming at you in my first blog post as a step-grandmother blogger. I used to be an Aunty blogger in the heady days of 2010 Mummyblogging. Going to all the do’s, getting all the samples, subjecting my niece and nephew to them, sugaring them up, giving them the latest toys and being able to hand them back to their mother.

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks – my stepdaughter and their partner moved in with us on the Sunday, bub was born on the Friday, and here we are a week later, trying to make sense of it all. It’s exciting and scary, and not entirely my story to tell, so I won’t. But I’ve gotten a lot of support, material and moral, from my little internet community. So thank you so very very much!

It’s better than I can say for this basil I unfortunately picked up for my sister this morning in the weekly OzHarvest bag from the local charity. The produce arrives at Cardiff from Ozharvest on the Thursday, the volunteers pack it into usually plastic hopping bags and it gets put into their fridge overnight to be handed out at 9am. The bags are tied at the top, and you get told off by the boss if you ask for a particular bag or try to look in it holding up the queue. And some of it’s fine, but from what my sister tells me, it lasts only a couple of days, maybe til Monday at best, due to the fridging and unfridging. I know the items are going to have a short self life since they’ve been picked up from the supermarkets cos they won’t sell them.

It bugs me that Labor will announce they’re funding a warehouse so a foodbank can expand rather than raising the rate of welfare payments we can all afford to buy the food we want when we want it form the local supermarket. It frustrates me that Foodbank are pushing for changes to tax laws to encourage more donations of food rather than pushing to end poverty.

Too many people are having long lunches and pulling six figure salaries while I’m embarrassed by the scraps I collect for my family. I like the idea of food rescue, but palming off wilted greens and bruised fruit that won’t live til the next schoolday isn’t fair to those who should really just be getting enough money to live from their government.

It’s 40 days til the holey parachute of welfare increases comes in. My little family will see an extra $120 a fortnight when you take into account the increases and indexations on offer on September 20. We’re not starving and we’re not out on the street, but there’s a lot that should be better.

Nanna needs a nap.