September 2014
Driving back from Kent recently I stopped at a garage to buy a sandwich and a packet of Maltesers for my lunch. Now I know it’s very bad form to eat at the wheel but many of us do it. Having munched the egg and cress on the M23 I was looking forward to the Maltesers as I hit the M25. Then, disaster. I managed to spill the whole packet into the seat well of the car. Worse still, as I accelerated they all rolled to the back of the rear
August 2014
Petrol is passé, electric is classé. That’s my slogan after driving the car I predict will change our lives. The American engineer behind the new Tesla electric car is Elon Musk, a man they say will soon be as well known as Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson. The Tesla looks like any other coupé. It’s wide, spacious and will seat 5 people.
July 2014
Sporting a Liverpool shirt young Kiera Ward certainly knows her football. When I chatted to the 8-year-old at this month’s summer garden party I asked if she was disappointed that Luis Suarez had left the club. No, said Kiera, because I also support Barcelona. Enough said. Kiera, who comes from Leverstock Green, is the niece of Jayne Barber who hosted the party at her Blue Gate home
June 2014
The colourful wild flowers on the Piccotts End roundabout have drawn some favourable comments in the Gazette, including one by veteran village resident Mrs Mary Wiedman. But not long later, while I was out planting up the Piccotts End village signs, to my amazement a car drew up, a young couple got out, walked over the road to the
May 2014
Have you seen an Empire Arts film yet? You should! With the Rex at Berkhamsted the local cinema of choice for many film fans my own visits to Hemel’s Jarman Park have been limited only to a few must-see-now movies. But the recently introduced Empire Arts programme is changing all that, not just for me but for everyone who enjoys live performance.
April 2014
Over at Hatfield House the other day I couldn’t help but notice the amount of noise from the nearby railway. With such a grand and historic residence, home of a line of Lord Salisburys and the young Elizabeth I, you’d imagine its gardens to be a haven of tranquility. But sadly not. Every other minute the peace is disturbed by the clatter of one of the many trains racing past only a few
February 2014
In between reading the Book Club choice Longbourn, which is an imaginative take on life below stairs in a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, I have been revisiting Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars. I remember the drudge of having to translate passages from Latin while at school. Now, more than 50 years later, they make a fascinating read. Putting aside the million-odd deaths he was responsible for,
December 213
It’s Christmas Day and for the first time in many years there has been no snow this month. Remember about 4 years ago when Hemel came to a halt in mid-December and the snow stayed until January? Today has been sunny, mild and dry, just like most Christmases. Yesterday we went to the children’s carol service at St Mary’s Church. It was just as well
November 2013
Hemel was in the news again recently, reprising a role with which it has become depressingly type-cast: Britain’s ugliest town. Yes, Crap Towns, that bible of all that’s pants in town planning, has been at it again. Hemel beat the likes of Luton and Hatfield in a poll of unidentified voters. But what’s this? A letter to The Times, no less, defending its
October 2013
Somewhere in Lithuania right now there is an old red lawnmower newly arrived all the way from Piccotts End! For nearly 20 years our Westwood ride-on had been keeping the grass down. We inherited it with the house when we moved here in 2003 and it proved to be a very reliable performer. However it finally gave up the ghost this month and