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Graham and the waffle maker - 27th April 2017
Maybe a subtitle for this blog post should be "the salutory lesson of surprise gifts" or similar!
I've been intending to write this post since January - my husband Graham's birthday falls on the 24th of that month.
This is Graham, below - looking surprised!
Our regular gift giving habits (or not)
It might sound dull, but generally Graham and I don't exchange 'gifts' on birthdays or at Christmas. There are several reasons for this. Firstly our money is all in joint names. Like me, Graham is of the opinion that the best person to choose a gift is the recipient, and within certain restraints we both buy what we would like when we want it. The final consideration is that neither of us wants to clutter up our home with unwanted gifts.
Then I began to weaken . . . .
I always feel a tad sorry for Graham having a birthday at what for me is the worst time of the year. Just after Christmas, dark, cold and generally not many opportunities for fun days out. Lots of tourist destinations closed and not reopening until the spring.
This year I really wanted to show my husband how much I love him on his birthday so I began to contemplate getting him a surprise gift. This was tricky territory for me, but I was inspired by something he'd told me about a while ago. Graham travels around quite a lot with his work and not so long ago he stayed at a hotel where it was possible to cook your own waffle for breakfast. A jug of batter and a handy waffle machine being available on the breakfast buffet table.
Graham was impressed with the results and had told me all about it. The other thing is that Graham definitely has a sweet tooth!
I had the idea I could buy him a waffle maker! Right! So where do I find one? On the internet, obviously. After what seemed like hours of searching I was not much wiser. So many options. So many poor customer ratings. Cheap? Or expensive? OK, don't panic. Ask friend who is a bit of a culinary whizz, bound to have a waffle maker. She did! I checked it out but still not convinced.
Another similarity between me and Graham is that neither of us can abide gadgets that are badly designed or tattily made. I began to feel quite nervous. In the end I reasoned it would be better to tell him about my plan and then he could help me choose the best option.
So, I told him. Guess what? He really didn't want a waffle maker! He like the idea of a waffle maker but was honest enough to realise that it wouldn't get used that often.
We all know what happens to under-used kitchen gadgets, don't we?
They end up as kitchen cupboard CLUTTER!
The moral of the story
As dull as it might sound, surprise gifts can so easily become clutter in a very short time in some cases. I must have had some inner voice telling me that my gift idea was not going to be a success. I'm glad I checked in with Graham before spending the money.
Keywords: surprise gifts, clutter
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