Author: Stephanie Hills

  • Just what she needed!

    A friend of mine (she wishes to remain anonymous, so let’s call her Mary) tells of a kindness she did for a woman from another town whose husband was seriously ill in Waikato Hospital. The poor woman was running herself ragged, with travel and other commitments. The only time she sat still was at her […]

  • New to the building trade

    Some men in a pickup truck drove to a lumber yard. One of the men walked into the office and said, “We need some four-by-twos.” The clerk asked, “You mean two-by-fours, don’t you?” The man said, “I’ll go check,” and went back to the truck. He returned shortly afterwards and said, “Yeah, I meant two-by-fours.” […]

  • Helping out family members in need

    In recent times I’ve heard plenty of stories of people suffering financial crises. One person who was made redundant approached the bank to renegotiate her mortgage, but was told there would be a fee of several thousand dollars. One of her siblings generously paid the amount for her. Another woman faced losing her home to […]

  • Helpful neighbour

    A woman who lives alone writes: “My neighbour was doing some work in his garden and noticed water seeping out of the ground along the boundary line. He investigated and found it was a leak in my water pipe. I was out at the time and came home to a note on my door saying […]

  • Secret Gardener

    My friend Mavis looked out her window the other morning to find her unruly rose bushes had been expertly pruned. It turned out the phantom pruner was Margaret Liddell, who writes the gardening column for Urban Country. Margaret keeps an eye on a number of elderly people’s gardens, and when she sees they need some […]

  • RAK Day

    September 1st is Random Acts of Kindness Day! This is a wonderful excuse to be kind to a stranger or do some unexpected favour for a neighbour, friend or workmate. RAK day was started in New Zealand in 2004 when Josh de Jong sat in a cafe watching an incident of road rage and thought […]

  • The sense in humour

    Don’t you love being around people with a sense of humour? Some people seem to have the natural gift of finding something to laugh about, even when things look glum. Being around funny people helps us to take life a little less seriously. Humour not only lifts our mood – it also changes our perspective. […]

  • An honest lawyer

    A businesswoman, looking for a lawyer for her firm, was interviewing the first applicant. “In a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question,” she said. “Mr. Peterson, are you an honest lawyer?” “Honest?” replied the job prospect. “Why, I’m so honest that my dad lent me fifteen thousand dollars for my education […]

  • Take it slow

    A man from the city visiting a small farm saw a farmer feeding pigs in a most extraordinary manner. The farmer would lift a pig up to an apple tree and the pig would eat the apples straight off the tree. The farmer would move the pig from one apple to another until the pig […]

  • Finders not keepers

    Have you ever lost a wallet and then had it returned, complete with contents? It happened to me a few years ago while Christmas shopping. I went back to the shop where I thought I’d left it and was told a high school boy had taken it, leaving his name and phone number at the […]