There is a knock at the door!!!

It’s the wrong door, however. Some fool is knocking at the disused front door.

But this is exciting. It means that there is a New Person who might be my friend.

I throw open the window and lean out anxiously. First impressions are not good and I think it might not be a potential new friend after all. It is a man with long hair who is not Robert Plant.

“Hello?” I enquire, making sure that I am still friendly even after my crushing disappointment.

“Hello, I’m the milkman. I was wondering if you would like your milk delivered in the mornings.”

I studied my visitor carefully. He did have a sort of milkman’s outfit on, and a Dairy Crest badge. I thought of asking him for some form of ID, as you read stories about bogus milkmen conning pensioners out of their life savings by charging them £8000 to fix a roof tile. But he seemed plausible enough.

The thing is, I would quite like my milk delivered in the mornings. I don’t really drink much milk, but it seems like a nice thing to happen. It would be another connection to that sort of traditional English idyll that I’m searching for – a Cheerful Milkman whistling as he saunters up the drive to bring me my two pints of silver top.

I’m sure, however, that if you actually looked at the history, the traditional English milkman probably only goes back to about 1963 and originally came from Germany.

The clincher was this. I get my milk and newspaper and everything from the Village Shop. If I didn’t need to go out to the Village Shop every morning then I wouldn’t see anybody during the day. Nobody. Not a soul. Then I would go mad.

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “I get my milk from the Village Shop.”

“It’d be a lot easier to get it delivered,” he counters.

“It’s only two hundred yards up the road!”

“We do eggs too. And butter. And orange juice.”

But I was resolute. His high-pressure sales tactics had only served to confirm my gut feeling. I will buy my milk from the Village Shop, and not from Dairy Crest, who are clearly an Evil Corporation.

I am glad I was talking to him out of the window, as his next tactic would probably have been to jam his foot in the door. But he would have looked foolish if he’d have tried to jam his foot in the window and sold me dairy products whilst hopping around with his leg in the air.

He shrugged and made his way next door.