For over 7 years a guy called Tom has always ensured I don’t wake up without milk. Well, 7 years minus perhaps 5 or 6 days when someone walking past has nicked my daily pinta. The strange thing is, I have never spoken to Tom. I see him some mornings, hurtling around the neighbourhood in his electric milk float but he wouldn’t know who I was. Tom is my milkman and we communicate via notes left in milk bottles and scribbled on the back of a receipt book.
I leave notes of when I will be away or when an extra pint is required and Tom ensures it happens. I leave a cheque in a bottle once a month and this ensures I never go without a pint of semi-skimmed. Ice on the road? Gritters can’t get out? Nothing so far has stopped Tom getting out early in the morning delivering the white stuff, making sure people can wake up and collect it from their doorstep.
Delivering milk is a thankless job at times and I can say that as it’s a job I once did. Shortly after I turned 12 I took a job as a milk-boy to earn some money. I got a phone call at 3am by the boss to wake me up so I was ready for 3.30am when he came to collect me. From then until 9am I jumped on and off a van falling once, a fall that saw me lose my job. I jumped off the back of the van, slid on some ice and sprained my ankle and because I couldn’t work for 2-3 weeks I got sacked…it’s a cut-throat world in the milk delivery business!
Every year around November Tom leaves me a little brochure flogging diaries and every year I throw it in the bin without really reading it. This year I browsed through it and noticed they were selling a cookbook, Good Food, Fast. I thought, Why not get a copy? So on the form I wrote a 1 in the cookbook box and put a diagonal line through the boxes for the Dairy Diary and the Dairy Diary Set. Tom left me a note to say he would deliver the following week.
Tom delivered on Saturday however he, conveniently if you ask me, mistook the diagonal strokes as 1’s so I now have not 1 but 2 diaries I don’t really want. I have no desire to sit at the front door waiting for him to turn up to return them nor do I want to deprive him of the meagre commission he probably gets from each sale so pity the fool at work that gets me as their Secret Santa! If you like the idea of having your milk delivered visit Find Me A Milkman, getting your milk delivered is also good for the environment as your empties are recycled every day!
I decided that this year I would give away some more 1 year Flickr Pro subscriptions later this month. I only have 3 to give away this year as I already gifted one to Catalina who was a winner from last year. I haven’t decided how I’m going to run this years give-away. Whether to just do a name from a hat selection or to perhaps ask people to link to a photo to be judged upon…I’ll have to think a bit more about that this week. I’m edging for the random approach.
So, what is it I was listening to on a Monday night that gave the title to this entry? Well, if you’re a Metallica fan you possibly recognised a line from a song on their album Reload, the song? Unforgiven II
Why not have a listen and let me know what you think, especially if you’re not a fan of metal.
2 Comments
I used to get milk delivered. I loved it. I only stopped as the milkman started delivering later and later until eventually he was delivering well after I had already left for work, and the milk was just staying on the doorstop all day.
You should try another dairy. Around 6.30 is the latest he’s ever been round, usually I get my delivery between 4 and 5am. I do love the convenience, no forgetting to buy milk on the way home then having to go without tea and porridge on a winter morning!