83 ~ Bread Delivery

Photo taken in La Vera, Tenerife

When I was small and living in Canada, the bread man came to the door to deliver fresh bread about once a week. We had a little wooden box nailed to the outside wall near the back door of the house. My mom would buy coloured bread tickets from the bread man; purple was for brown bread and green was for white. There were only two kinds of bread to choose from. When, for example, she wanted two loaves of brown bread, she would leave two purple tickets inside the little box and when the bread man came he would open the door, remove the tickets and replace them with two loaves of brown bread. From time to time she would buy more tickets and the system worked well as bread was always delivered and paid for even when she wasn't home. There was no sliced bread then. The loaves were whole and wrapped in brown paper.

Milk was another item that was delivered to the front door in glass bottles. Before milk was homogenized, a quart of milk came with a precious head of full cream on top and one was supposed to shake the bottle well to distribute the cream before opening. But we loved that cream on our morning cereal so there was a rush to see who could reach the front door first to steal a little of it before mom rescued the bottle. At first money, and later green plastic tokens were left inside the empty glass bottles on the doorstep for the milkman to take away and replace with full bottles.

Other things that came to the door: the eggs, delivered by Mr. Chase, a chicken farmer who wore what looked like a beige bowler hat; the groceries, which were ordered by telephone and delivered by Jock McKay, son of the Scottish grocer; the meat was also ordered by phone from the butcher, the dry cleaning and dad's white shirts from the laundry as well as the daily newspaper.

And there was the Watkins man who came from time to time selling tinned spices and cleaning products. We did rely a lot on home delivery then even though we lived in a town and not out in the countryside. However there were no supermarkets and so small enterprises made their business by delivering to homes.

Bread rolls are still delivered and attached to a wall or doorknob here in Tenerife. I've never heard of anyone stealing someone's bread. Here you can see this bread roll has been left on the door handle of a house on a narrow sidewalk bordering a main road in what is a busy shopping area.


Another bread roll hung on the protruding nail of a No Parking sign on a busy Tenerife street.


I used to have bread delivery but now prefer to buy it as needed from one of the German bakeries here who produce healthy whole grain loaves and rolls made from an assortment of flours.


While out walking I came upon a long wall covered in flame vine (Pyrostegia Venusta) in full bloom.
I never cease to be impressed by this beautiful climber.


Thanks for the visit and ¡Hasta La Vista!