Thoughtful presents: Leaving on a jet plane

My friend Coops and his girlfriend Fran who I’ve become friends with as well are heading off to New Zealand for 18 months. Yesterday they had farewell drinks and I thought it was an occasion that needed a present.

I thought the best thing to get them was an airport/flight care package. After asking a couple of friends who’d travelled a fair bit for some ideas I came up with the below.

I bought them a couple of magazines; Coops loves films so Empire magazine was best. For Fran I got her Psychologies magazine as I thought fashion and girlie magazines weren’t her sort of thing. I also put in a colouring book and puzzle book to keep boredom away and some fluffy warm socks for the flight itself.

They weren’t expecting anything, so their surprised reaction was nice to see.

Thoughtful presents: First time mums

Over the years quite a few of my friends have been pregnant and it’s easy to think of a present for when the baby is born, but not so easy to think of what to get somebody who has just announced they are pregnant.

I’ve given this present twice, first to my friend Michelle when she was pregnant last year, and secondly a few months back to a colleague of mine who announced she was pregnant also.

When Michelle first told me she was pregnant I wondered what could I get her to say congrats but also be helpful. Alas my two week work placement at Mother and Baby magazine during my Journalism degree did not prove useful in thinking of an idea. Partly because I spent the majority of the time photocopying!

So I googled what expectant mums would be going through in the first trimester and found that they would be getting increasingly tired and needed more water than usual. There were other things as well, probably to do with food, but I thought people’s food tastes are so different and change so much with pregnancy that I thought it was best to steer clear of food.

I then thought to keep it simple and buy a water bottle and a cushion. Both my colleague and Michelle commuted to work, so both presents were needed and greatly appreciated.

Thoughtful presents: Not costing the earth

I find the whole issue of how much we spend on presents really interesting. I’m a firm believer that affection shouldn’t come at a cost. I remember at school and uni, people would talk about how much they would spend on Christmas presents for their family and it would be around £200 and I was shocked.

My family pride ourselves on getting a bargain. It doesn’t mean that a family member isn’t less deserving of a gift because we didn’t spend so much on them. It means we can spend money on a greater number of people if we wish. I remember one Christmas Lucy bought Lisa series 1-5 of CSI, and she had to explain the cost because HMV had made a major error in their labelling and instead of £30 or so, it was £3 or roundabouts that figure! It was that great a bargain that the story had to be told.

On Tuesday I caught up with my friend Laura who I hadn’t seen in a couple of months. It was her birthday on Monday and I said that I would treat her to some gelato at Fabios. I also had bought a lucky dip bag from Tiger, which happened to be her favourite shop. I had no idea what was in it, but as you can see she got some random gifts. I didn’t realise that she actually loved the bird clips in the bag and had a few already and wanted some more.

She loved the lucky dip bag and the gelato; with the bag costing £2 and the gelato just over £3, a fiver for happiness for a friend isn’t bad going.

Thoughtful present: A party in a box

A few weeks ago I saw the live streaming of the National Theatre production of Angels in America at my local cinema. It was in two parts shown over two consecutive weeks. The first part was 3 hours 20 minutes and the second part was 4 hours 20 minutes (each part had a couple of intervals thrown in.) It was an epic play with amazing performances by the whole cast, and the staging and lighting were of a very high standard as well.

What stayed with me afterwards was ability the whole cast had to remember what was in essence the duration of several plays. And furthermore had the high energy to give thought provoking, funny and sensitive performances night after night.

I’ve written to a cast of a show before when I thought it was really good, but I thought that wouldn’t be enough this time. My sister Lucy knew someone who worked at the theatre itself and he advised against giving anything baked. The first thing I thought about when leaving the streaming of the play was that the cast need a long holiday, but I’m not a millionaire so I couldn’t send them to a tropical island!

I then thought that letting their hair down and having a party might be the next best option. So I visited one of my favourite shops Tiger and bought things to make a party in box or party package which has a nice ring to it. Novelty glasses were the main contributor, and I also bought some funky straws and disposable shot glasses. In a stroke of luck, I also found some sashes that said ‘I was hot in the 80s; which was pretty apt as the play is set in the 80s!

I dropped off the party pack to stage door early this evening. Who knows if it will be used at a party they may have. Even though there were a few well-known actors in the cast including Oscar nominated Andrew Garfield, I’m sure they’d appreciate a surprise thoughtful present from time to time.

Random act of kindness: Good customer service should be rewarded

Last week I was heading towards the hill at the end of my street for a brisk walk when I got stopped by a stranger asking me where the nearest hotel was. It was the next street along and as I hadn’t any urgent plans I thought I’d walk her there myself.

We got to the hotel and she hadn’t booked anything in advanced and she was a bit startled at the cost. She asked me if I knew of any other hotels and luckily I did as I used to work at one close by. I gave them a call and unfortunately they were fully booked. You would think that would be the end of the conversation but the receptionist went onto give me the details of other hotels close by, and their contact details. To save me time calling around she even checked Booking.com to see if there was availability. Bear in mind this hotel was fully booked and not gaining anything by helping me, I thought she went above and beyond.

Upon talking to the stranger some more I found out her name was Lisa and she’d travelled from France and was back up to Edinburgh the next door, not before presenting a poster at an event at a university. She was extremely tired, so even though the hotel I showed her to was the more expensive option, she booked a room there.

So there was the random act of kindness that I helped a stranger get a hotel room, but I also wanted to say thanks to the receptionist at the hotel I called. Luckily I was still in contact with the Front of House Manager, so I contacted her just to double check the name of the receptionist. I then wrote a little note and bought a bar of chocolate and dropped it off at the reception desk.

I’ve no idea if she has received it or her reaction; that’s not important. What I thought was important was that good customer service that goes above and beyond is recognised, which sometimes isn’t the case. Sometimes it’s easier to make a compliant because you’re hoping for a refund of sort, some sort of personal gain. Having worked in a couple of venues I recognise that at the end of the day venue staff work really hard and put up with a lot.

And who doesn’t like a free bar of chocolate? Free food always tastes better!

Thoughtful presents: They don’t always go right

Throughout this blog I’ve mentioned random acts of kindness and thoughtful presents that I’ve given. Social media has a way of being able to highlight when things go right, but if I did that all the time then it wouldn’t be real life. Things go wrong and this week a thoughtful present/act of kindness went wrong.

One of my creative friends was going through a tough time as a family member was in and out of hospital. When I hear somebody I know is going through a tough time, I have a reflex that I have to do something to make things better. Not to solve the problem because I haven’t got a magic wand in life. I just feel a surprise present, act of kindness or whatever you want to call it, might make a tough day a bit better.

So back to my creative friend, I thought making some granola bars might do the trick. They’re a good source of energy and healthy. I got my friends address and like all acts of kindness I was all set to do a doorstop drop off because some people get awkward in accepting kindness. I was all set…and then I saw on his Instagram that he was on holiday! So I had a batch of granola bars but with nowhere to go. Luckily with anything I bake; family, flatmates, and work colleagues are happy to eat them. 

This isn’t the first time a kindness idea hasn’t gone the way I planned it. A friend of mine last year had her first baby. She had lost her mum when she was a teenager and although she had female relatives around her, I thought it would be great to get some advice on motherhood from some well-known mum’s. I wrote to around 15, and had planned to write to more. But I only got 2 replies; one was from JK Rowling’s people saying she doesn’t reply to individual letters. The other was in a week of writing and was from Jo Elvin, who is the editor of Glamour magazine. She wrote a lovely letter for my friend and really put the time into writing. I didn’t get the outcome I wanted, maybe I just wrote to the wrong people.

And when I did a random act of kindness day I tried to give a dog a bone! It’s seriously hard to do. The owners are close by and would get suspicious of a stranger giving their dog a bone. In the end I just had to leave it in a park and hope a dog would find it!

In the news you hear lots about random acts of kindness and the successes, but you hear less about the ones where the intentions are good, but don’t pay off. They should be rewarded just as much because at the end of the day, doing something for a stranger is a risk, you don’t know how they’ll react whether it will be good or bad.

If an act of kindness doesn’t pan out, don’t be put off. It’s all about timing and sometimes even acts of kindness, however great they are can have a case of the right place wrong time. And if you’ve experienced that in an act of kindness you’ve done, I urge you to keep going, and I applaud your efforts.

Now does anybody want some granola??