Hope is a place on the internet.

I post on a forum on the internet. I started posting there when I was planning Mal's and my wedding, and since then have found my way onto different bits of it and have got to know some of the other posters quite well. I have even met a few of them for a drink. I don't think I've ever met such a high density of just genuinely nice people from one place before.

There are times when I wonder what will become of Mal Jr and what sort of place it will be by the time he enters it, and whether all hope of a decent society will be long lost, and we will forlornly remember the days when neighbours actually cared about one another.

That is, until yesterday. there is one member of the forum - actually, I will stop myself there and call it a community, because it is - who has had some tough luck recently. She is a mother of four and her eldest (15) has been been suffering cruelly at the hands of a mental illness (interim diagnosis received yesterday was bi-polar disorder) resulting in her trying to commit suicide 3 times, and being admitted to a specialist psychiatric unit that deals with children.

S (the person in question) is also well into her 3rd trimester of pregnancy number 5. She is a stay at home Mum and her husband works shifts in a job that keeps food on the table and their heads above water... but not much else. Due to all of the to-ing and fro-ing to hospitals and the like he has used up all of his holiday allowance (that he was saving to use as paternity leave when number 5 arrives) and couldn't afford to take any with the amount of pay that Gordon Brown deems acceptable to give for such occasions.

She was going to make do with a battered pram that had already been used for a number of her children and was on its last legs, too. So a couple of people (TF and H) from the forum decided to do a whip round for S in the hope that we could spread a little happiness and buy her her dream pram (yes, this is the sort of fluff and nonsense that gets discussed on this forum).

So we did. And it was delivered yesterday. And we caused her (in a good way) to be smiling and crying at the same time for most of the day.

And the question of what to do with the change. A few too many people were a bit too generous with their hard-earned. We actually had enough for the pram nearly 3 times over. We had no idea what to do with it all, but bearing in mind that they were in need of a few other things that we probably didn't want to say about, we just gave it to her.

Mr S can now take a week of paternity leave to get to know his new baby, and support his wife.

Nice things do happen to good people. And hope is indeed a place on the internet. It's just a matter now of getting it back into the real world...