13 November 2012 - Dear Dairy #13

Bimbling along in the clapped-out electric milk-float that is life, with its one functioning side-light. I'm peering into the mist through a freezing screen and listening to the birdsong echoing through the woods.

I like this early part of the round. Still dark. Long drive-ways to big old houses. No one around, except the occasional early-riser, hunched on their bike, cigarette glowing in the gloom. Not many cars, and the buses go the other way.

There's time to take it easy. Light a cig then hop out, pulling off a couple of wet bottles of silver-top, and crunch my way up another gravel drive.

No milk. Thanks. You could have told me yesterday. The estates are the worst, though. Old biddies waiting at the gate to have a go at me.

"You're late." "The milk's not fresh." Widows, most of them. No one else to moan at or threaten. "I'm going to change milkmen. I can't have you coming at this time every day." Their husbands are well out of it.

I write a big red zero over the "2" for today at The Grange. The cab light flickers. I can just about remember the deliveries, but I can't remember what they've had by the end of the week. These four grubby books look after that.

I stuff the note in with the rest, hand-brake off and away we go. I like the sound the float makes. Like pouring liquid. Clicking through the stages to twenty-five miles an hour flat out. That'll do me.

I must try to email Ryan Bingham to ask if he and the band had been listening to Brian Eno's "Apollo" before doing "All Choked Up".