The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
The other day I was having my morning coffee. I like it with sugar in spite of all the hints I get about putting on weight. But there was no sugar in that coffee and the first taste was a bitter mouthful. Looking sternly at my wife, I spoke my mind about wives who can’t remember that their husbands like a little sweetness. From there we remembered one of Wilfred Pickle’s favourite ideas. He sometimes asks the folk if there is some little thing about husband or wife that annoys them a bit, so that they could say, ‘I love you, darling but . . .‘ My wife said, ‘Well, you could say, I love you, darling but I wish you would remember to sugar my coffee.’
‘I think’ said I, ‘that I’ll make that the subject of my next ‘Random Thoughts’- not to take things for granted.” Life would be terribly dull and uninteresting if you never got any surprises, even if they are unpleasant,’ said my wife.
It would rob life, and especially marriage, of its variety, if we always knew just what to expect. The unexpected things, even if they are a bit unpleasant, add spice and variety to life. There was an old lady I used to know when I was a boy. She came up to my mother one day in great distress. Those were the days when the new fangled pudding mixtures were coming on to the market. Many a blushing bride, who knew more about cosmetics than cookery, blessed the magic packet of powder. This dear old lady confessed to my mother that she had bought one of the mixtures and had made a pudding with it, as she thought. The old man sat down to his pudding, but the first mouthful made him sit up. ‘It has a very soapy taste,’ said the old man, ‘Nonsense,’ said his wife. ‘Take it up.’ And because he was the kind of old boy who never let anything go to loss, he ate it all up. Not long after the old lady found the packet of pudding mixture unopened. Nearby on the shelf was a half used packet of Rinso.
For one woman the day began badly, according to a story told by one of my favourite writers. The baby had overslept so she had a rush to get Robert out, and the baby had been fretful and she had to get ready and get the baby ready to go in to see a specialist 20 miles away. Then she had a long wait and on the way home she remembered she had put on milk to boil and had forgotten it in her rush and the pan would be ruined and the milk lost. That was the last straw.
She opened the door. The doorstep looked very white. She went into the scullery, no smell of gas, no milk boiled over, no pan ruined, but the kettle boiling gently and the table in the living room set for tea and flowers on the sideboard. Then she heard the voice of her next door neighbour. ‘Eh, love’, she said ‘you went off leaving the back door open, so I just looked in and the milk was coming to a boil so I put it in a jug on the pantry shelf, and I reckoned you’d be rushed, so I washed up and made the beds, and I’ve dried the clothes and folded them, and what did the doctor say about the baby?’
Yes, it is like that sometimes in life. When we think that round the corner, there is something we dread, we find an unexpected joy. Tell me, do you ever try to give somebody a surprise like that? An old Negro used to pray, ‘Lord, grant that nothing may happen to me this day, that You and me together can’t handle.’
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