I know… how random is that?
And please don’t start singing about Ernie or giving me a mental image of Benny Hill. I am serious about this rage towards milk floats.
Seriously, they do my head in. What is the point of a milk float anymore?
Okay so I know people might like to still have their milk delivered (my lovely in laws *waves at Hopalong and Lady B*) by the milkman but here is my gripe. Milkmen used to deliver in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning. Hell I went out with a milkman when I lived in Essex and he used to go straight to the depot after a lock in at the pub and start his round at 3am.
So the idea of a milk float chugging round the county at 3am delivering milk or orange juice onto door steps so that it was cold and fresh for the morning cuppa is quite romantic. I like that idea.
But at 8am? Who wants milk delivered at 8am? Anybody commuting has gone to work, leaving their milk on their doorstep until they get home at 7pm. And anybody who is retired is up, dressed and onto the second pot by 7am so wants the fresh milk at 6am.
I regularly crawl along behind a milk float on my school run. Doing 20 miles an hour on a country road with a speed limit of 50mph. The tailbacks are epic. And it doubles the time of my school run.
I wouldn’t mind if he was delivering to the majority of the houses along that road. Chugging and stopping means we could over take him. No. He is just chugging because the deliveries he has to do are so spread out now that his milk round is enormous.
If dairies do insist on continuing milk rounds, after all I don’t want to see Cyril or Eric (and that is another point, they have their names on the front of them, why is that?) out of work, could they not consider a Prius? Presumably milk floats are electric as they were cheap to run and silent? Well so is a Prius.
And a Prius has a top speed of about 110mph. Now THAT is the kind of milk float we need in 2013. Not the out dated snail pace van I normally find myself behind.
This is my rant for this week. Please do click on to the links from other people who are joining in with my Ranty Friday.
I actually cancelled our milk delivery because it was arriving at 1130pm at night. We’d go to bed (ok, we’re saddo’s, but I have a toddler who gets up at 5am) at 10pm, only to be woken by the milk float at 1130pm! If I didn’t get out of bed, to put it in the fridge, it would either sit outside til we got up in the morning, or would be attacked by the foxes (they’re pretty good at smashing milk bottles and cartons and getting at the contents) when I rang the depot, they were distinctly unhelpful. I buy my milk now. I loved having a milk delivery, but it’s not what it used to be. 🙁
I had thoughts of that episode of Father Ted… As a driver who hates tail backs, I think this would send me over the edge before my morning coffee.
Having lived for a while in the back-end of beyond with dirt track roads and roads like a rally circuit I know where you are coming from here T!
Amanda x
Yes yes yes totally get this, so annoying. We live in the city and my husband just hates it as he is always woken by then in the early hours as they crash and bang with the bottles
Back in the day I used to get home on a Sunday morning from a night out just as the milk floats were heading out for the day, little feckers used to get in my way too!
This is so true and not just applicable to milk floats but also anyone who drives in a hat!!!
Our milk delivery was a very short lived affair in that it didn’t arrive until midday (then sitting outside in the sun until we got home to stomach churning lumps) and he’d only deliver on certain days in certain quantities. In that we get through milk by the gallon here, it just didn’t work. School has theirs delivered by him though – imagine what that does to the school run traffic!
Ahh legit rant! 8am is far too late.