Saturday, June 28

When another bottle of milk went missing - part 2

My mother redoubled her efforts.

across the road from their house there is a boundary hedge with a drainage ditch in front of it. The ditch is full of thistles and nettles and long grass and an ideal place to stage a stake out.  Embedding a camping chair in the ditch and dressing warmly, my mother set the alarm again, waited for the milk to be delivered and then went over the road and settled herself into the ditch at about 3am.

Nothing happened

Until 5am when the paper boy came along to deliver the newspapers.

Mum was concerned that when he passed where she was hidden, the boy might see her and be startled, so when he drew near she called out to reassure him

Hello... Hello there ... It's only me!

The boy looked around to see where the voice was coming from - but she was hidden from view and too deep in the ditch and too cold to get up and reveal herself

Dad called her in for breakfast at 6.30 and no more milk went missing and the matter faded away ...

... Until a few weeks later the postman came to the door and said you'll never guess what?... then showed her a video on his phone of a large retriever jogging up the road, carrying a square plastic milk bottle in his mouth.

(continued from previous post)


  1. Dogs love plastic. Luckily, our milkman still uses glass bottles.

    1. It hadn't occurred to me that dogs would go for the plastic - glass bottles are much nicer too

  2. Leaving aside that having milk delivered (at least by a regular milkman, to regular people, who aren't special ordering carbon neutral soy or almond milk or some such) is already impossibly quaint (by American standards) your intrepid mother is confirming everything we sort of believed about British village life but didn't really think could still possibly true. Apparently there really is a detective around every bend, or lurking in every hedgerow over there - but very nice, polite detectives, who don't want to startle paperboys. And then, the culprit turns out to be a dog. If it's a Sealyham or a Lurcher or something along those lines I'm going to have to go and lie down.

  3. oops. I see. The criminal was a retriever. Did you get the name? Nigel? Cecil? Reginald?

    1. We are indeed impossibly quaint Kim, I'm still riding around on a penny farthing bicycle in my leg-of-mutton sleeves - the dog was probably called Sally

    2. I want a picture of you on a penny farthing and wearing the leg-of-mutton sleeves. Please also include: straw boater (with ribbon), and butterfly net. Sprigged muslin also acceptable. Hope I may see in September - you may wear your new orange garments to London in lieu of aforementioned outfit. We are seeing Shakespeare at the Globe as well as KB, if you're interested XOXO++++

  4. I thought he was going to have a video of the paperboy talking to something in the ditch :-)


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