We have just come back, my daughter, Mia, and I, from a trip to Bristol. Keen shopper and general merchandise consumer that my daughter is, we left early so that we could spend some time shopping in the centre of Bristol before going on to stay with family just outside the city. We stopped to buy lunch in a busy and fast pace sandwich/ warm snack cafe. I ordered and paid and too late, noticed a soup on the menu that sounded delicious. The person service us must have heard me talking about it because as he laid out our lunch on the tray, he added a cup of the soup. " You should try it," he smiled, " it's delicious. On the house!"
Maybe it was just a loss leader, maybe he had been asked to promote the soup, maybe the soup had almost run out and he wanted to finish it off but I like to believe that he was just being kind. And believing that warmed me to my heart and made the thought of 3 hours shopping much more bearable. And it made me realise how rarely in our manic, often self-absorbed race through life, we have time to be randomly kind and how much difference it could make if we were. The smallest action can make the hugest difference. Most of us can probably count on our fingers the number of times we have been truly randomly kind to someone, friend or stranger. wanting and expecting nothing in return other than the pleasure that the knowledge of having done it can give us. Yet all of us will remember the times when an unexpected kindness has changed the way we walked through a day.
" You read too much into that whole soup thing," Mia says. And maybe she's right but it"s still making me smile two days later- and it was delicious!
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