Last updated: October 2026
When I moved to Tuscany, I packed a couple of suitcases, stored everything else in a friend’s warehouse and went to start a new life in a medieval village. I had a nine-month-old baby, no friends or family anywhere near, and no grasp of the language whatsoever.
What I didn’t have was a winter coat.
Giving, before
Before Italy, I’d lived as an expat in Saudi Arabia. I was lucky enough then to be in a position to give, and I gave a lot. Black sacks full of new and nearly new clothes, shoes and bags went off to all sorts of charities, some local, some global.
It felt good. I never wanted anything back. I just wanted to make that extra bit of difference to people who needed it.
I had no idea that a few years later I’d be on the other end.
Then winter came
Straight after the move, I learned all about what I call the circle of give and take.
Word got round the village that I was a single mum with a baby, that winter was coming, and that all my warm clothes were sitting in a warehouse back in the UK. And the village rallied round.
On different days, different people knocked on my door. Some I’d chatted to. Some I hardly knew. Some I didn’t even know the names of. Every one of them handed over bags and sacks of winter clothes for me and my daughter.
I remember kneeling on my terracotta floor, just staring at all those bags. It hit me that my clothes had come back to me, only in a different form. I learned two things that day. How valuable that circle of give and take really is. And that you have to be humble enough to accept.
The stripy jumper
I’ve worn labels. Ball gowns. Expensive hairdos and perfumes, you name it. Not one of them ever touched me like the bright, stripy jumper a stranger knitted, purely for me.
To this day I don’t know who knitted it. Or the five little jumpers they knitted for my daughter. But that person will always have a place in my heart.
Because dear stranger, you kept both me and my daughter warm, especially on those freezing winter nights.
Wearing the village
It was quite comical, walking round my close-knit village in other villagers’ boots, coats, scarves and hats.
To end
In one way or another, strangers really do care. And the circle of give and take is something we’re all better off being part of.
If you ever have a bag of warm clothes going spare, you know what to do.
You might also enjoy:
- The snow and the old lady in the café
- Otello: the day I bought a Tuscan village home from a 93-year-old war hero
Susan
