Mm, frost

[pensnest]

I was musing on the beauty of an icing-sugared world this morning as I got the milk in and went to get breakfast sorted. It really is so pretty when the sky is bright and blue and all the world is covered in what must by local standards have been quite a severe frost. (I know it was -1C last night as I drove home.) Looks as though getting the magnolia pruned to a carcass was a very good move.

And when I went to pour the milk for my coffee, it didn't.

Comments

[cardalia.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm always surprised to be reminded that you actually have milk delivered to your doorstep in Britain.

It was -31C here this morning. When I left home and started walking to the bus stop I could feel my nosehair freezing. ;D And then when I stood around waiting for the bus hiding my face behind the scarf the eyelashes in the corner of my left eye froze together. Mmmm, winter.

[pensnest]

Brrrr! I'm so glad to live in a place where anything below 0C is unusually cold!

When I was a child, birds used to peck holes in the milk bottle tops to get at the cream on top. Nowadays they don't bother. I wonder if it's because the milk is homogenized so the cream doesn't gather at the top, or because the birds are spoilt for choice, with every other household hanging out balls of fat or columns of peanuts for them to eat.

[cardalia.livejournal.com]

Well, the average temperature in February in my part of the country is about -8 (+-7) degrees C, so -30C isn't exactly an everyday occurrence, but it isn't impossibly rare either. People always bitch and moan about it like crazy.

When I was a child, birds used to peck holes in the milk bottle tops to get at the cream on top.

Wow, I'm torn between fascinated and ewwww. And birds really are picky. If you give them peanuts, they'll completely ignore breadcrumbs until all the peanuts are gone.

[pensnest]

Better yet, we had a dog, who would wait until birds had enabled a hole in the foil top on the milk, and then carefully knock the bottle over so she could have a nice drink too.

I suppose birds have a finely developed instinct for the food most worth eating, and peanuts score over breadcrumbs every time.

[cardalia.livejournal.com]

*laughs* He was a crafty one! It must've been annoying, though. No milk for tea, not even the frozen stuff.

(I'm craving chocolate now, that looks so good.)

[turloughishere.livejournal.com]

-31C?! That's scary! Here it was "only" -8C but it felt quite cold enough when I was out with Lancecat!

[cardalia.livejournal.com]

Teah, I had to check the thermometer twice before I belived it was really that cold. *g* It did climb up to -21C during the day but it's back down to -27 by now. I'm not too tempted to spend time outside, that's for sure.

Does Lancecat refuse to go out when it gets cold enough?

[turloughishere.livejournal.com]

I don't think we've ever had more than -20C here in Stockholm and even that is incredibly rare. I guess it's because we're so close to the sea.

Lancecat doesn't seem to mind the cold very much at all, the only difference is that he want's to go inside sooner. In fact he's refused to go out for a few days, I think because he dislike wet snow intensly, and today was the first day he didn't balk at all.

[cardalia.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't blame him. Wet snow is icky. ;)

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

frozen is so much better than the alternative reasons why it won't pour ...

[pensnest]

Oh, indeed... ew... I was so taken by surprise, couldn't quite believe no milk was landing in my cup. Probably not quite awake.

[turloughishere.livejournal.com]

Frosty mornings are wonderful! It was "only" -8C here this morning (it was -11C last night) but it snowed a little yesterday so there was this thin fluffy layer of fresh snow on the ground and it sparkled so beautifully in the sun.

[pensnest]

A little frost just crisps everything up nicely, doesn't it!

[rikes]

Having milk delivered to your doorstep suddenly seems like the funniest thing in the entire world to me. Sorry! It just sounds so surreal.

So, tell me, how does this milk business actually work? Does it come automatically or do you have to order it? How many bottles do you get? Glass or plastic bottles? Do you have to recycle them yourself or does the milkman pick up the old ones? Is that one bottle (or however many you get) enough for the day or do you have to buy more elsewhere?

I'm sure there's a Finnish custom that you'd find just as amusing, but I can't think of anything right now. Meanwhile, you could just keep entertaining me. :)

[pensnest]

It's less common these days to have milk delivered, when I was a child, *everyone* did. It is cheaper from the supermarket, in 1-, 2- or 4-pint plastic bottles.

Usually, the milkman would arrive quite early, so there would be fresh milk for breakfast - I used to like to have the top-of-the-milk on my cornflakes, it was creamy. Nowadays, though, we have skimmed milk, so, no cream at the top. It generally arrives at around 8am. (When I lived with my grandparents the milk used to arrive around midday - their milkman was known as the 'midnight milkman' because he was so late.)

Yes. Well. In our case, the milkman came round looking for business, and asked if I wanted to be added to the milk round. He only delivers three days a week (once upon a time it would have been Mon-Sat). Milk is delivered in glass one-pint bottles, and the empties go out on the doorstep to be collected next time. We get an envelope once a fortnight to put the payment out with the empties.

The milk is transported on a 'milk float', an electric-run vehicle which basically looks like a rectangular platform with a roof, and a tiny cab at the front for the driver, and pootles along nice and slowly. We get two pints twice a week, and three at weekends, but I do supplement this with milk in plastic bottles from the supermarket, because our consumption varies.

The milkman does his best to entice us into buying other stuff from the dairy, like fruit juice, cream, even bread and vegetables. He also runs a Kleeneze catalogue business, which meshes perfectly with the milk round, and apparently will even deliver potatoes and fertilizer!

It's one of those 'invisible' customs, like having the post put through the door rather than left in a box at the end of the drive, which we don't notice is peculiarly British until someone exclaims about it!

[rikes]

That's interesting, thanks for explaining! :)