Unexpected kindness

Today marks the first day of our 'holiday' in Canada. I say that rather tongue in cheek. Not because we are not thrilled to be on holiday now, but because we have had so much fun during the last few days it would be hard to describe the last week as 'work'. The Emergency Disaster Services conference was asolutely fantastic. About 200 delegates gathered from across Canada (largely from the Prairies and British Columbia). Th conference organisors managed to pull in some excellent presenters and teachers (and I'm not referring to myself there, of course), so we really learned a lot from the classes we took. We met up again with some old friends, which came as a real reminder that the 'Army' is very much a small world with a great circle of friends.
Anyway, that's not really the subject for this post. This morning Lyn and I decided to head into downtown Calgary. Rather than take the car and struggle with strange roads and potentially high parking charges, we left the car at a Park and Ride and caught the train. The fun started when we tried to buy a ticket. It was a brand new train station but the automated ticket machines only accepted coins. No notes or debit cards. We rummaged through our wallets but we hadn't any change. We neede $5 and had less than 50 cents! The station was in the middle of nowhere, so no place to get some change. We stopped a few other travellers but no one had change of a $10 note. Just then, an elderly woman, who didn't appear to be the richest woman in town, came back and emptied her purse into our hands. She had exactly $5 in small coins, just the right amount we needed. She would hear nothing of our offers to find a way to reimburse her. A simple and unexpected kindness for two strangers who appeared in a bit of a tight spot. Started our day off in a really nice way. Wonder when the last time was that I showed such thoughtfulness?