Anyone would think I had asked for the moon on a stick. It was a perfectly straightforward request, but the woman behind the counter looked at me like I was an alien who had just dropped out of the sky into her caf.

"Milk?" she said with a quizzical frown, as if I had just asked for sweet and sour llama balls or freshly squeezed prawn juice. "I don't think we've got any milk. I'll have to check in the back."

Maybe I am just too cosmopolitan for my own good, but I don't think it is too much to expect a caf to be able to provide a glass of milk for a thirsty kid.

Particularly if that caf is in Tesco and is within mooing distance of a whole aisle full of the stuff.

After five minutes of searching "in the back", the woman returned empty-handed.

There was no milk today for the Munchkin. Instead he had to make do with a bottle of water to accompany his bread roll and granite-hard pack of butter.

I'm assuming the women who do lunch at Tesco were just having an off day and usually have a veritable smorgasbord of milk products on offer, from semi-skimmed to freshly drawn goat's milk straight from the teat. Unfortunately, however, this was not the first time the mad milk-drinking Munchkin had had to make do and mend.

A similar request made in the children's play barn at Riverside Farm was met with blank faces all round. And, perhaps most staggering of all, during a summer visit to Flamingo Land - a place purpose-built with kids in mind if ever there was one - we couldn't get a glass of milk for love nor money.

Sugary milkshakes, yes; sickly sweet "fruit" drinks, no problem; over-priced bottles of mineral water, come and get 'em; but a glass of milk, no chance.

Finally, we were offered a dozen mini plastic cartons of milk - the sort you squirt all over yourself when you try to peel pack the sealed foil lid - and a paper cup. As you can imagine, the Munchkin found the inch and a half of warm, tasteless milk sloshing about in the bottom of his quickly disintegrating cup most refreshing.

Again, the good people at Riverside Farm and Flamingo Land may have been having a bad day, but by the looks on their faces, this was the rule rather than the exception.

Some places of course get it right. The new rather swish caf in Sainburys at Monks Cross provides individual, resealable cartons of milk, so if your kid doesn't knock the lot back in ten seconds flat (you obviously don't have a three-year-old with hollow legs) you can take the rest home for later. And the Spurriergate Centre on the corner of Coney Street not only provides milk, it also provides kids with a whole stack of books and toys to keep them entertained while you recharge your batteries with a coffee (which you can get refilled for free as many times as your bladder will allow).

Places such as this - child-friendly places that actively encourage you to return again and again even if your offspring bear a striking resemblance to Satan's spawn and have been banned from every Early Learning Centre in the land - recognise that not all kids live on copious amounts of Sunny Delight.

I have nothing against fruit-flavoured drinks. In fact I think they can be an absolute boon if they actually have the merest hint of real fruit in them. But all too often they have roughly the same fruit content as a bicycle wheel - and about a third of the nutritional value.

Some kids, my own included, just don't like the sickly sweet taste. Granted, these kids may be few in number, but that doesn't mean cafes can get away with dumping the white stuff entirely in favour of luminous orange stuff that looks like it could shift the rust off cemetery railings. So come on cafes, carry a couple of cartons. And next time the Munchkin pops in for a pit stop, make sure he leaves with a milk moustache.

Updated: 09:47 Tuesday, October 29, 2002