July 2011
Well done to Shirley Hall Florists in Hemel Old Town for providing not only a colourful addition to the High Street but a teashop into the bargain. We called there one Saturday afternoon and it was a treat to sit down amongst all the flowers and perfumes and be served an excellent cup of tea with a delicious coffee and walnut cake. With the Old Town’s other cafes closed on Saturday afternoon Shirley Hall is now the last tea oasis in town!
No such luck when searching for a late cuppa on Sunday afternoon. Our usual haunt, the Attic Tearoom in Berkhamsted, closes at 4.30pm and a quick dash to Sanuk at the Little Heath Nursery at Potten End nursery also ended in disappointment. No one seems to want to provide a real service these days, unless you’re running a Hand Car Wash and come from Eastern Europe. These guys are there at the top of Galley Hill 7 days a week, even at 6pm on a Sunday. Now that is service.
We went to the open air production of Macbeth at the Gaddesden Estate on a chilly Thursday evening. If I say it was the night they murdered Macbeth that wouldn’t be an exaggeration. But it was all good knockabout fun that could be enjoyed by adults and children alike – and there were plenty of kids there getting their first taste of Shakespeare in a style that mixed tragedy and comedy in a disinctly odd way. But then the production company was called Oddsocks. When Macbeth referred to this ‘blasted heath’ and the wind swept along the hilltop setting he wasn’t kidding.
Our local paper, the Hemel Hempstead Gazette, is getting thinner and thinner. I can’t understand why it’s not a tabloid like practically every other local paper in the country. By contrast the neighbouring Herts Advertiser is a busy compact brimming with news and lively letters pages which put the Gazette to shame. Letters are a good barometer of public opinion so either there is complete apathy among the Gazette readership or the editor doesn’t print nearly enough.
Update: Sadly Shirley Hall Florists didn’t last long, closing a year or two later.
