h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We had such a lovely relaxing day yesterday. Lunch was so easy, being Christmas lunch revisited. Then the buffet tea was laid out, vol-au-vents warmed and trifle and salad removed from the fridge.

When we'd finished eating as much as we could, the spread looked hardly touched. One of my guests made the suggestion we just wrap the whole table in clingfilm (thats saran wrap to you Americans I guess if I could have opened the windows and turned the dining room into a cold store it would have worked exceptionally well.

Yes, we now have enough ready to eat food in the house to last well into the New Year. Thank goodness for fridges and freezers. And our lovely milkman of course, who will bring not only milk but also cream, bread, eggs and potatoes.

It's blowing a gale outside, and we're well away from areas where wind is usually a problem, so I am so glad I've not got to go anywhere whatsoever today. I'll just sit here and eat this mince pie. And some chocolate. That *is* a balanced diet isn't it?

Chocolate comes from beans, and is therefore a vegetable. Milk chocolate contains dairy. The crust of a mincemeat pie is a grain, while the filling is fruit. Suet comes from an animal, and is therefore meat. So yes, it's a balanced diet

You are of course right, Amy

An in each hand does it for me, though

My Day 3 is back in the office I've never seen it so quiet. Ever.

Think I'll take a long lunchbreak and go shopping in Oxford Street.

"And our lovely milkman of course, who will bring not only milk but also cream, bread, eggs and potatoes."

This man...is he single? I think I'm falling in love...

I used to like working between Christmas and New Year. The three days when you can actually get stuff done (and have two hour lunch breaks if I felt like it... ).

I didn't have any mince pies. I don't care for them too much, they're weird. Cats don't eat them, not even if they got real mince in them. There's too much other schmutz and stuff.

Mice pies on the other hand, that's sumfin I could really get my teef into, if you know what I mean

My family used to have milk delivered by milkmen. That was in the 1950s and early 1960s. Nobody in my family has served mince pie in many years.

Apple, pumpkin, and cherry seem to be the most often baked items on my family's tables.

>>"And our lovely milkman of course, who will bring not only milk but also cream, bread, eggs and potatoes."

This man...is he single? I think I'm falling in love...<<

But surely the best bit is the tingle of anticipation of him arriving every other day. Constant company with eggs and bread might get a bit monotonous and spoil the fun.


- I've just noticed the judicial use of "arriving".

Hmm - anyway - just before New year, people wish each other a Guten Rutsch here in Germany, which means "slide well" - i.e., slither, slip, slide, sidle or skid into the new year in a suitably enjoyable fashion. Coupled of course, implicitly, with the Schadenfreude so closely associated with German humour, implying that, as it is likely to be icy at this time of year, anyone who is out of a night is likely to slip on the ice and fall over.

easter egg spotters, who'll be the first

Guten Rutsch to you then TC

Our milkman is a jolly shaped forty something country gent. He has a teenage daughter who sometimes accompanies him when he's collecting the payments. Sorry KB!

Every so often mum says he is too expensive. She's comparing it with supermarket milk which is ridiculously and unfairly cheap. Our argument for keeping him is that the milk tastes SO much better. And of course, the fact that he brings it to our doorstep every single day, with the exception of Sunday.

Long may he keep in business, I feel we have a connection with a herd of dairy cows not to far away.

When I was a child, we lived somewhere else than this village, but we had a milkwoman. I remember there was an uproar when she was mugged for her takings and then replaced by a man. I seem to remember that it wasn't considered a suitable job for a woman. Times change, doorstep milk is a dying tradition now, sadly.

When I lived in Bristol, I was very poor and had to pay the milkman with tokens given as part of my benefits, because I had two children aged under three. Our milkman was called Frank and was the stereotypical cheeky chap. I bet he is a very old man now, if he's even still alive.

All this talk of milk has made me think about making a milk pudding for the Ageds.

I don't even know if we can get milk delivered any more around here. I think there might be one or two guys that do it, I'm not sure. But you certainly don't hear them clinking from half a mile down the road, the way you did in the days of the milk floats. Sixty crates of glass bottles jolting along at three mph takes quite a while to pass out of earshot.

The frst ever bottle milk deliveries were in 1878. Not long in the history of the world.

It's far from impossible that it could become a lot more common again, too. Home delivery is becoming the preferred way of shopping for many people.

I do hope so it is a way of binding a community as well as a supply service

[Waits for the milkman to deliver mince pies ]

And cream

Well, gee, if we're going to get pies and cream, let's ask for coffee, too.

Hey, let's ask him to make the breakfast too! The worst he can do is say no.

Egg and crispy bacon for me