To ask what's the loveliest thing someone has done for you?

[Antsinpants]

To end a shitty week with a warm fuzzy thread. Mine is when dd1 was a few weeks old and I was totally knackered, struggling to bf and using formula, my lovely SIL - who had also just had a baby - washed and sterilised all my bottles so I didn't have to. Such a small thing, but it meant everything to me at the time and she's still easily my favourite person in the world. Share the love!

This didn't happen to me, and I only found out about it about a year ago. My mum collapsed while waiting for a ferry with my little DB (4). 2 complete strangers drove her to hospital instead of waiting ten mins on the ambulance getting there. She passed away that night, but I still think that was an amazing thing they did to try and help her.

Love this thread. I think it's still got to be when my lovely DP managed to get 2 days leave to visit me in hospital. He works offshore, had told me on the phone he couldn't get time off. It was a 200 mile drive once he got on land so meant the world to see him walk into my ward!

When I was moving primary school aged 9, i got sent out of class to run an errand for the teacher. When I came back, my classmates had quickly put up some decorations etc and presented me a beautiful crystal type jewellery set as a leaving gift. It was only then I realised I had been sent to deliver all the messages to other teachers etc for the last week or so, obviously so they could plan and collect money, etc. I still remember how proud some of them looked to have pulled it off without me suspecting a thing :)

My little boy got me a glass of water in the hight of summer when I had overheated. Simple love and kindness does not come easily to my family. It meant a lot.

The time I had pnd and a lovely woman walked the aisle on an aeroplane with my screaming baby - 19 years later I will never forget that !

Snowing heavily and getting worse. I was in Bethnal Green. I worked in a building there and was on nodding terms with some of the black cab drivers who worked out of a garage nearby. Was walking towards tube station and the roads were terrible. When I got there BG tube station was closed. One of the cab drivers noticed me and asked if I was ok so u told him the trouble. He told me to jump in and drove me to Holborn. On the way he had his daughter googled open tube stations and worked out I could get home from there. He would not take a penny from me and said that if his daughter was in a similar position he hoped Someone would help her.

Having a really hard time at the moment, as a LP haven't been coping well with dd, currently staying with GPs.

Health visitor has been popping by despite the fact that dd isn't currently with me, just to check on me. She has been doing this on her free time.

Her visits are giving me some much needed social interaction and i am incredibly grateful that she has gone above and beyond for me.

A few months ago when my mother was dying in hospital, her young and gorgeous (as in personality) amazing nurse sat with her for two hours past her shift finishing, talking to her about her life and dying etc and making her comfortable. Every day until she died after that, when she was on shift, even though she wasn't assigned to her room, she popped her head in the door to see her and have a joke and laugh with her. She told us that she and mum had formed a special bond and that didn't happen to her too often.
The absolute kindness of her giving up her precious time off between shifts to sit with her meant so much to us.

I got a bit carried away in the John Lewis sale and was struggling down Harley Street in London's busy west end with more goodies than I could easily carry including bulky awkward items. I'm in my 40's so not that ancient and a young woman in her 20;s came and insisted that she help to my car. She was going in the other direction but turned round and walked 10 mins back on herelf to my car with half my packages.
She just said that she wasn't in a hurry and I needed help and that was that. Made me feel so happy and it's also made me want to offer more little random acts of kindness - good for the soul.

Aged 18, I was dressed as Snow White in my town centre to hand out leaflets for a family fun day at the pub where I worked. An old chap came up to me and in broken English said, "You are very beautiful and I wish you very happy. When you choose a man, do not look at his rich, do not look at his handsome; look at how he treats his mother and his sisters. That is how he will treat you."

A few months later, I went to uni and met my lovely DH in my second week. He has brilliant relationships with his mum and sisters, as do I. I've never forgotten that lovely man's wise words.

I am not a confident driver, and I was driving alone with 2 children in the back. I get to a meeting point, and the other car (4x4) keeps advancing towards me, then cornering me in. She then starts shouting at me.

I start shaking and put the handbrake on and turn off the engine as I can't see how I could reverse out of this, and don't feel safe to do so.

A lovely man comes over, asks what's happening, tells the other driver to calm down, and reverses me out of the meeting point, then turns the car round for me. I don't know what I would have done without him.

Two that spring to mind immediately (and what a lovely thread)...

Aged around 10.. staying with my Dads best friend and thus, his kids - they had ponies, I was the ponyless pony mad kiddo..

We all set off to walk/ride to a local gymkhana, I was trying to lead a stroppy shetland pony AND push my bike, a highly unsuitable racing bike, across the common and rough tracks... it wasn't going well. I managed to get someone else to lead the pony but then got left behind as they all trotted off and I was still dragging the bloody stupid bike, and by now in tears.

Going past a garden that fronted onto the common, I fell over the bike and really scraped my leg, started howling and swearing.. and a face pops over the hedge... a nice lady invited me to dump the bike there, come in and clean up my leg and did I want to join their BBQ and then go to the gymkhana with them a short while later as they (and their kids) were going too.

Did i! Not only did they clean me up, (find out who I was and who I was with.. its a small rural community so everyone knew everyone)... they LENT ME A PONY to ride for the afternoon!

It was like a dream come true out of some pony book... I'd love to say I then entered all the gymkhana events and won them but I didn't... but the look of EVIL on the faces of the people I was supposed to be with was amazing when I did arrive, in style on a lovely smart grey pony instead of dragging a bike!
I had a lovely afternoon and at the end they drove me and my knackered bike back to where I was staying too!

Another 'kindness of strangers' one - aged around 18, I'd been invited by my then boyfriend to come up and stay with him at his shared house in the town he was at Uni in... I turned up at the appointed time (pre mobile phone ownership) and he wasn't home, in fact no one was and it was HEAVING it down, so I was soaked, standing on the doorstep.

I sat there for an hour and then the man who was renovating the house next door came over and said he'd seen me waiting and couldn't watch any longer, did I want to come in, hang up my stuff on the radiators, put on dry stuff and wait there?

Oh yes I did... (and yeah he coulda been a murdering weirdo but he wasnt)...

I hung up my stuff, found some dry stuff right in the bottom of my bag, got changed and then he said 'bugger waiting, lets go to the pub at the end fo the road'.. so I said it was ok not to bother, as I had no money and he said sod that, come on... so we went and he bought me a bowl of soup and a plate of chips... and then gave me the house key so I could let myself in to collect my stuff once my stupid boyfriend reappeared! Then he left me in the warm pub, and went back left a note on the door saying where I was and went on his way.

Never saw him again - collected my stuff later that evening (boyfriend reappeared about 9pm, i would have been waiting SIX HOURS by then!) and put the key through the door as instructed.

What a kind man - never forgotten that!

This didn't happen to me, and I only found out about it about a year ago. My mum collapsed while waiting for a ferry with my little DB (4). 2 complete strangers drove her to hospital instead of waiting ten mins on the ambulance getting there. She passed away that night, but I still think that was an amazing thing they did to try and help her

Blondieblondie, I (obviously) don't know the circumstances surrounding your mum's death but that gave me a lump in my throat. I'm glad she had kindness in her final hours.

Such a lovely thread, it has inspired me to help out a friend who I know is struggling at the moment.

I don't have any friends and am judged as horrible by many people, somebody who I hardly know sent me a lovely message saying really kind things. Five years on I've still got their message.

DH turning up at my early bird swim at 730 am with my lunch bag which I'd left in the fridge (I have a long drive to work). It was just lovely seeing him in the car park,chairing for me. I'll never forget that moment of kindness.

A former US colleague (who I have kept in touch with long after he left the company) often sends me thoughtful emails with funny articles and just general chit-chat, particularly through dark times, like when DH was diagnosed with cancer and when DBro died in Feb. Just knowing someone out there is thinking of me is an amazing gift.

Waiting for me, that should say!

My Dad remarried after my Mum died, to a woman who turned out to be quite mad. There was a horrible row, and she cut off all his contact with me and my brothers. It was a miserable time. My FIL came to stay, bringing with him a handwritten scroll, all sealed with red ribbon and sealing wax, and written in silly legal type jargon. The gist of it was that he and MIL were officially adopting me to rescue me from the wicked woman. It was the sweetest thing they could have done. It was nearly thirty years ago, lovely FIL died several years back, I still have the scroll.

A few come to mind... I had a friend who came to visit once and she wrote me a really nice letter, just saying "I think you're a lovely friend" and hid it in a notebook so I wouldn't find it until she had gone.
I fell down the stairs in the Tube once and my foot was bleeding really horribly (the whole shoe filled up with blood) i was standing on one leg while everyone looked away, then this one person just put her hand on my shoulder, gave me a plaster and walked on, which I thought was kind.
My boyfriend once came to my room the night before an exam because I said my feet were cold and he just sat with me and hugged me until I got warm.
Someone gave me a ticket to a charity concert last year because my boyfriend, who was singing in it, had refused to come out and say hello even though I had walked all the way over and the concert didn't start for 45 minutes and I was distraught (I felt so bad about it that I gave the charity £50!) this was the same boyfriend by the way.

Being heavily pregnant made my pre existing mobility problems much worse. When I was struggling down station steps to get a connecting train, a man coming up the steps guessed I was going to the train on the platform and said he'd make it wait for me and went back down to do that. I was so grateful I could only mouth "thank you".

DH can't swim. DS and I love to swim. After DD was born, when DS was 3, I wasn't able to take DS anymore, because no local pools would let me take 2 under 8 by myself. I told this to a friend, whose dad happened to be with us. He says he'd come to make up adult numbers. And he did - every week for a year and a half until DS and my friend's DD started school.

I'm very hard to help - I don't admit weakness. A friend from playgroup could see I was struggling when DC2 was a baby as she never ever slept, but she didn't offer sympathy, she just came around regularly and took DD from me. I was very anxious and would want to take her back when she cried but friend wouldn't let me. She once walked her around the kitchen for over an hour to get her to sleep. She also offered to come over in the middle of the night to hold her so I could sleep. She knew just how to handle me! We're very close now.
I knew DH was a keeper when I was in hospital for a week when we were 20 and had only been going out a few months. He walked the very long distance to and from the hospital multiple times a day, got me extensions on my assignments, bought me food and took fantastic care of me.

enolagay bet you are not horrible really

Need to get this eye problem sorted , they appear to be leaking profusely !

Ten years ago, we spent a week in Spain at a wonderful baby and toddler friendly place in the hills. I've kept in touch via FB with the incredible lady who owns the place and she's always asked after my children. When I did a sponsored event, she was the first person to sponsor me and I was really touched.

Earlier this year I was struggling a little with DD (17, but with sn) and wondering how I could reconnect with her. I saw a photo of the lady from Spain leading her pony and asked about availability. She immediately messaged back and told me to book flights and just come!

DD and I had a wonderful 3/4 days with our caring and expansive host and reconnected in a way I hadn't thought possible at that time.

Thank you Sarah- those few days with you were just blissful ❤️

When DS was 3 he started screaming hysterically in the car. Turns out there was a frog jumping around on the back seat! I stopped the car as soon as poss and got the frog out, but he disappeared under the car and I was scared that I would squash him if I drove off. A lady came out of her house to see what was wrong (I was white as a sheet) and got on all fours to chivvy the frog to safety. She even stood guard as I pulled away to make sure it didn't get hurt. Just a little thing to do, but how kind to help a stranger and a frog.