I was going through town this morning, through the shopping precinct when I came across a small group of people holding notices saying "Free hugs here", they were also telling people they could get their free hugs here. I assumed that it was a charity collection, but no, the hugs were entirely free, so I had two, one off each of two men!

A nice gesture which left people smiling, except for the grumps who didn't want a hug.

How nice. There are a group of people in London who do something similar, they call it "Random Acts of Kindness", so they'll give someone a hug, or some sweets, or a small bunch of flowers, something like that. Now if only everyone could act like that all the time...

I used to belong to the website where members do the RAKs, I did a few myself and it was great fun. They normally do them on Fridays, or did. One day I went into a shop and bought a box of Thornton's chocolates, went to the till and paid for them then turned to the woman bhind me waiting to be served and asked her if she liked chocolates, she said yes so I told her they were for her and walked out of the shop. Another Friday I bought two bunches of flowers and put one each on the desks of two of my colleagues, much to their surprise.

I belong to a forum where we all make greetings cards, if someone is unwell (not just a cold) or has been having a tough time we do card showers for them and they receive cards from all over the world over the space of a couple of weeks. That didn't seem quite fair somehow as some people would never qualify for a card shower so we also have a random shower each month, the receipient knows nothing about it until the cards begin to arrive. I just mailed one off this morning, and in fact one yesterday too, one to a person who has been having a tough time and the other the random one.

I think that is great. I had a bunch of flowers arrive a couple of weeks ago. A friend of mine in New Zealand had a medium sized lottery win and decided to share some of his good fortune, so he sent me some flowers. It was a complete surprise and just made my day.

This hugging thread reminds me of my ex-mother-in-law. Pardon me while I retch. I used to HATE being hugged/kissed by her. She's an extremely attractive woman and applies olive oil to her face to prevent wrinkles. The result was/is a greasy smear on your cheek or shirt if you got a hug, and a greasy smear on you lips if you got a kiss. I can't tell you how disgusting it was/is. She's rather pathetic now; she's in her 80s but still uses the olive oil and applies her makeup with a shovel. So remember ladies--when giving hugs don't have anything slippery on your cheeks.

I had a friend who used to hug me all the time. It made me hideously uncomfortable because I'm not a touchy feely person at ALL. It's nice that others are, but alas it just makes me cringe when I'm assaulted like that. I actually hate it unless it's the kids. I don't think Australians are that demonstrative. She was English.

Then she invited me to go nude swimming with her!

Not - in - a - million - years.

But as for the free hugs etc, I think that's a lovely idea to create a happy feeling in the world. I wouldn't want one, but it'd make me smile seeing others do so.

The Free Hugs Campaign started in Sydney! An Aussie came home from England and felt lonely in his home town so he wanted a hug. It's all grown like Topsy since then. *HUGZ* (Creedy excepted )

http://www.freehugscampaign.org/

That's so sweet. We need more people like that in this world.