Tesco supermarket has stopped delivering food in bags – even paper bags
Now potatoes are delivered individually in a van as has always been the british way. I must accept this is the perfect solution for all mankind’s problems .Naturally as a disabled person that can lift a bag with my one good arm it will be distressing to have individually delivered potatoes.Now we are free to return to medieval English systems – not for us the foreign idea of wicker baskets , bags and boxes . Traditionally a woman would pick potatoes and be proud to carry 7 in each hand and several balanced on the back of her neck .
I remember the shouting of barrow boys in the 1950’s ” cam on you can fill yer pockets with loose potatoes “.
Now I look out to see the hipster costermongers scurrying from roadside burrows with 7 potatoes firmly held in their beards after a Tesco delivery.
I marvel at the women driving the necessary 4 wheel drive city car, some using not much more fuel that a Tesco delivery van ,rows of individual potatoes on the dashboard ,she has managed to collect the kids , saved the planet from the paper bags I recycled and still has time to get ready for another flight to an eco holiday.
I have ordered a traditional potato coat from my taylor with the necessary 18 pockets to easily transport potatoes to the traditional heap on the granite worktop.
No fancy ,spawn of the devil, containers in MY kitchen – and I think the 4 electric ovens at each site of the potato pile give symmetry to the kitchen as we open the takeaway’s endless boxes and fill the recycling bins with plastic wrapping .
I have the mandatory stack of immaculately sanded and polished wood for my log burner – so nice that the latest television homes don’t actually HAVE the illegal wood burners ,I is now sufficient to have the logg stack.
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Oh Geoff, thanks for the laughs, and what memories it stirs!!
Our daily bread came vic horse drawn cart, big high topped covered like a super big cupboard. No such thing as plastic wrappings, not even paper! no germ proof gloves either, just grab the bread out of van, if only half loaf wanted, well just pull loaf in half, take the the money and there is yer bread! As he gee upped the horse, plop plop, the horse left his message, as I hand to bread to Mum waiting at our gate, she says, here is the bucket go pick up the horse droppings on the road! My mum grew lovely roses, had heaps of rose bushes! big sister and younger sister would not pick up manure off road!! but younger brother and I were Mum’s willing slaves, John says no, so I agree no! not doing that! I will give you a penny says Mum, make it three pence says John. Oh wow great Johnnie now I can get three pence, I will do it Mum. What a great pocket money source that was.
Then our milk, now at least milko had a motor vehicle, milk was in big cans with ladle for each size, half pint, pint or quart pint! Billy was left on front verandah with money in the lid! how healthy was that? Milko also never washed his hands, money into his leather bag, ladle out the milk.
Fresh vegetables also came around on horse drawn cart, we mostly grew our own but anything we didn’t grow we could poke and prod and select, no wrappings no paper bags just veggies in open boxes and we had our basket or string bags.
For all that unhealthy deliveries of food stuff some how we survived!!
It’s called progress
We all remember things delivered via Horse and Cart….milk, veg, just about everything…even the bin men had a horse and cart….I remember them well.
Hi Geoff, a nostalgic and humorous post……….but I now seriously worry for our planet……just reading a couple of days ago that the ice is now dramatically melting at such an alarming speed that within a few short years the sea will rise by 120 foot and London our capital will be completely under water……..we all know or should be aware that the beautiful Polar Bears are dying because there is no ice for them to rest on…….they are drowning because they cannot stay in the water indefinitely……..they are starving to death………we should all do what we can…….until the government really steps in and absolutely bans all products harmful to the planet then I fear the massive changes that are needed immediately will not happen………we are in a throw away society, the clothing that is dumped every week is creating a massive problem in the landfills emitting fumes into the atmosphere…….please take unwanted clothing to the charity shops, don’t sit in your car with the engine running the fumes polluting the air we breath, the cases of breathing problems being diagnosed are at a all time high, children in buggies are at the same level as exhaust pipes….. I could go on but I am sure most of you are aware of what the future holds if things don’t change….spread the word folks……a big shout out to the younger generation on this one who are trying desperately to raise awareness….
The blog is a fiction or not. I grew up in the US and I saw little of that. I lived in the country and we walked to farms, raised or grew our own, or went to the grocery store. I did live in a city in adult years and in the 60’s peddlers went down our alleys. I don’t remember what the produce was in or how we carried it in. Door to door people were around also. Naturally, the ice cream trucks were the most fun. The milkmen delivered door to door. In terms of pllution, rest assured Trump says there isn’t a climate problem. Actually, Most of you probably know about him and the US is removing most restrictions.Many people do not know enough science to understand weather and climate and the US is busy polluting at a record pace. I will be honest, I don’t do enough myself. Most people who live on the coasts know there is a problem. Trump wanted to buy greenland so maybe he thinks that could be his next place to go when Florida is under water. Our President, Jimmy Carter, was a nuclear scientist and he tried to make big changes. We are going backwards here in the US. I am glad that Europe is proving that changes are possible. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned”, and I think we are doing the same.
Couldn’t agree more Rose…