Most lies are bad, a few lies are good, and some fall in-between.
I was sitting in the garden of our home in Perdiswell, Worcester (I must have been around 6 years old) when my sister ran excitedly towards me: “my pet bee gave me some honey!”
I was amazed, and had so many questions: firstly, you can actually have a pet bee? Where does it live? How long have you had it? Where do you get the honey from? What does it mean to “give” it to you?
All of those questions became immediately unimportant with a single question from her: “would you like to try it?”
Yes! Absolutely I would!
It tasted incredible: sweet, sticky, and almost familiar—although I was quite confident I hadn’t tried honey before.
I couldn’t get enough, and my sister was only too happy to keep going back for more. I licked spoon after spoon clean before I returned to my questions, and the answers came thick and fast.
- “Yes little brother, of course you can have a pet bee”
- “It lives in these small holes above the back door”
- “Oh, a few months, but I only just got the honey”
Satisfied, I licked my final spoon clean and went back inside to drop it in the sink. I had learned so much about the world! So much about bees! What a kindness—the honey and the facts.
As I walked through the kitchen and dropped my spoon in the sink, a can on the counter caught my eye: Lyle’s Golden Syrup.
Funny, I thought, I like golden syrup.