Beware this dodgy dummy in Gadebridge Lane!

February 2012
Six inches of snow, minus 14 degrees, abandoned vehicles & burst pipes. Welcome to freezing February! Unlike last year, when the snow fell on a Saturday afternoon and brought Hemel to a complete standstill, this time it came on a Saturday night. There were plenty of abandoned vehicles but by Monday the roads were back to normal and despite the Arctic temperature most schools, shops and offices were unaffected.

A van advertising a Hemel eatery has been parked by the Leighton Buzzard road for the past few weeks. It’s by the junction with Gadebridge Lane. At first glance it appears to have someone sitting in the passenger seat. On closer inspection this turns out to be a rather sinister looking dummy. I wouldn’t want to eat somewhere which uses such slightly dodgy tactics to  win my custom. In any case since the advert for Gullivers doesn’t make it very clear, I have no idea where it is. How long it takes Dacorum council to get the vehicle moved remains to be seen.

Well done to Hemel’s Old Town Hall Theatre for an excellent spring programme. I’ve already booked Fever Pitch, Sense and Sensibility and an intriguing production called Love on the Tracks, a  comedy drama about three passengers on a train in 19th century Russia. Sounds wonderful. Despite all the cutbacks it’s good to see the OTH bringing good quality productions to the town.

Very sad to learn of the death of PERA chairman Robin Corbett. As Lord Corbett of Castlevale and Hemel’s former MP he was one of politics’ most influential characters but to all of us in Piccotts End he was plain Robin, always friendly, helpful and concerned. When we first moved here nearly 10 years ago he was among the first to give us a warm welcome and we became firm friends. He will be sadly missed. Our condolences to his wife Val.

12th Night is all right on the night

January 2012
It was good to see so many residents at the 12th night drinks party, especially as there was some confusion over the date. I have to take some of the blame here as my research convinced me it was January 5th. Afterall, if the first day of Christmas is December 25th then the 12th day is January 5th. Apparently it doesn’t work like that. 12th night is Epiphany, January 6th. Luckily that didn’t deter some 30 residents congregating at the Old Bakery, home of PERA secretary Michael Nidd and his wife Pat. Among the guests were two of the village’s most recent arrivals, Tom & Julia Blinko, who spent their first Christmas in their new home at 138. It was also good to catch up with two other residents spending their first Christmas in the village, Carly & Ramon from the Boars Head. All four were very enthusiastic about village life and said how much they were looking forward to playing an active role in it. There was also talk of organising a street party to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June and Maggie Chandler from Riverbank said she planned to hold another summer party, later in the summer, to raise funds for Help for Heroes. Roll on June and July!

Update on my December & November posts: the rubbish in Beechwood Lane has been cleaned up. Good. Chez Gerard in Berkhamsted has closed. Oh dear.

Who’s responsible for this blot on the landscsape?

December 2011

I’d love to know who’s responsible for turning the piece of land bordering  Beechwood Lane (on the way to Markyate) into a tip. They should be put in the stocks and pelted with rotten tomatoes! This used to be a pretty lane with green verges and pristine hedges. But then the owner of the land on the south side allowed it be used as a site for storing wood chippings. Since then the entrance and the lane has become a magnet for fly-tippers. The road is strewn with litter and the entrance, as my photo shows, is a disgrace.

Joining the advanced booking list of the Rex Cinema, Berkhamsted, has been like winning on the Premium Bonds at your first attempt. My first ABL arrived last week and I couldn’t wait to hit the phone. After years of endless calls and frustratingly long waits, as noted here on several previous occasions, I got through straightaway and booked the best of the month’s offerings. Fantastic! Why didn’t I do this before? Well I did, back in the early days when the ABL was only half its current £150 price tag.  I think I gave up on it after several over-enthusiastic bookings which left me with spare tickets going begging. With so many films sold out, if that happens again I think I’ll try and set up a black market on ebay!

Christmas lights in Piccotts End are a bit thin on the ground. Driving through the village a few nights ago it seemed that only Mill Close had got into the Christmas spirit. Maybe we should start a competition for the best illuminations next year. There will have to be safeguards  of course, like a light bulb limit to prevent anyone attempting to recreate the Blackpool illuminations!

Berko draws a Blanc!

November 2011

Berkhamsted’s climb up the culinary ladder continues. I heard last week that Raymond Blanc will soon be joining the likes of Chez Gerard, Villagio, the King’s Arms and the Gatsby. Fantastic! I’ve been to M. Blanc’s more famous establishment, Le Manoir, a couple of times. It is a very special experience, and not just for your wallet! Let’s hope Berko’s Blanc mirrors its success. I look forward to giving it a try.

After many weeks of hearing nothing I finally received my notice of reprieve for transgressing the Moor End Road restrictions. Having appealed fairly early on in the fiasco (25,000 drivers fined at the last count) I thought I might succeed, especially when it turned out that the enforcers couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of paperwork which had been generated. The warning signs and road markings are now clearer but people are still being caught. They can’t believe that if you want to get to the Magic Roundabout from Waterhouse Street, all of a few hundred yards,  you must now turn round and drive all the way back to the other end of town.

I have finally decided to bite the bullet and take out membership of the Rex Cinema, Berkhamsted. This is after years of endless phone calls trying to book tickets on a Saturday morning. But I doubt of this will be much good when Hugo is shown. It’s about a boy who grows up in a Paris railway station and Scorsese’s shots of the city are apparently breathtaking. Alas they are in 3D!

I don’t like the Old Town’s new Christmas lights. What happened to the lovely old ones with their warm reds and yellows? They have been sacrificed in the interests of energy saving. The new ones, colourful and environmentally PC though they may be, have a cold and clinical blue hue. Warm and inviting they are not.

I see the Gazette has caught up with my posts about sky high petrol prices in Hemel. My advice is to nip over to Shell, Redbourn where 4-star is 129.9p a litre, at least 3p less than here.

A question of sovereignty

October 2011
Having failed the 11-plus some 50 years ago I was heartened to have the opportunity to re-take it thanks to a sample test reproduced on the BBC web site. I always assumed that if you failed an intelligence test at 11 why would you be any more intelligent 50 years later. Wiser perhaps. Anyway I passed, but alas too late to get into Dr Challoners (or Amersham Grammar School, as it was then.) A friend of mine illustrated the mystery of the 11-plus for an 11-year-old with a question he recalls as being slanted against the intelligent but less-well educated child: Which would you rather have, half a ton of sovereigns or a ton of half-sovereigns? Post your answer below.

As an occasional listener to the Archers I noticed they have belatedly added a Book Club to the daily storylines. We’re not exactly ahead of the times but even Piccotts End has had a Book Club for nearly 3 years! Wake up Ambridge!

Good to see the Old Town’s Halloween House of Horrors back again despite being for sale. I heard that the owners are planning to move to Devon. Maybe the house should have a clause obliging the new owners to continue the Halloween tradition.

Reading James Hannaway’s latest Rants & Pants in the Rex Cinema programme about the closure of Berkhamsted Post Office reminded me of one of the best days of my life. Back in the early 1960s I became addicted to postal betting. In those days you could place a bet by post as long as it was time-stamped before the start of the race. I would nip out in the school lunch hour and post my bet at the post office. Accumulators were my speciality. Usually they all lost. But one day a letter arrived through the post containing a cheque for the then princely sum of £8! Amazingly my one-and-six each way (about 30p) 8-horse accumulator had come up, yielding odds of 25-1. Buoyed up by this success I promptly lost the lot in less than a week!

Moor End fiasco is another fine mess!

September 2011
The Moor End Road saga has hit the local headlines and before I knew it, I also became a victim. Yes I saw all the signs along the LB road warning of enforcement cameras but not knowing where Moor End Road was, I didn’t take any notice.That was until I received a fine for driving along it!  Now I do know where it is. Moor End Road is all of 50 metres long, is barely signposted and you’ve been able to use it to get back on the LB road for donkey’s years. No wonder so many people (17,000 at the last count) got caught. I have followed the instructions of one of the many people protesting the fine and await to hear if my appeal has succeeded. And all this just to allow a few empty buses to keep to their timetables.

When was the last time we had a thunderstorm? I don’t recall any this year which is quite unusual, but hardly surprising given the dull summer. With the chances diminishing as we head towards winter this may become something of a meteorological record. Meanwhile thunder of a different sort rumbles on along the Leighton Buzzard road. Having allayed residents’ fears that their temporary repairs had made the road much noisier, Herts Highways relaid the surface. The only problem is that it is still very uneven and the noise is worse than the old road. There are plenty of comings and goings in the village. The Boars Head is under reconstruction as a private house and I know at least two near neighbours who are giving three cheers for that. No more late-night music and intruders in their garden.  Meanwhile the future of the medieval cottages remains in doubt. No one seems to know what has happened to the couple who bought them at auction earlier in the year. The BBC contacted me about wanting to make a program about the cottages but were unable to go ahead because they couldn’t contact the owners.

No room for a pub in pint-sized Piccotts End

August 2011
End of the road for the Boar’s Head, or as it was affectionately known, the Whore’s Bed. It’s always sad to see the passing of a hostelry that’s been there for more than 100 years but the reality is that pint-sized Piccotts End couldn’t sustain a pub in today’s economic climate. There’s always the excellent Crown & Sceptre a mile down the road at Briden’s Camp. You could say that’s even more off the beaten track but mine hosts Martin & Shirley have made it into a meeting point for walkers, locals and diners alike. The Boar’s Head might have survived had it found the right landlords but that wasn’t to be. It now looks likely to become a private house and most people in the village will welcome that. Discounting the Marchmont Arms, the closure marks the end of an era in which Piccotts End boasted a school, a church, a hospital, a bakery, a mill, a pub, a petrol station and garage and few more besides where locals gathered together.

No sooner had I made some unflattering comments about the Gazette in my July blog than it suddenly becomes a tabloid. A coincidence of course but I am taking the credit. The new format is much easier to read, seems to have more news and certainly more letters. I noticed in one week’s edition that out of 13 letters, only 5 writers supplied their name and address. I think editors should only print letters from ‘name and address supplied’ in cases where printing the identity of the authors seriously endangers them. It’s a sign of the times that today’s ‘silent majority’ want to make even a murmur of complaint under the cloak of anonymity.

Tea for two is an Old Town treat

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, with its news, leisure and property sections annoyingly separate. 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.

It’s raining again

June 2011
Last year’s flaming June has been replaced by rain, rain and yet more rain. We went to the Gaddesden Craft & Food Fair. It rained. We went to an open air concert. It rained. This means there is certain to be a drought order any time now. The last time was about four years ago when water restrictions were brought in about a week before the heavens opened. The odd thing is that cat washes were allowed to carry on, with their high pressure Karchers, while those of us at home with our low pressure hose pipes were not.

Can the papers come any earlier? This morning they arrived at ten to 6. That must be a record. Well done to Parry’s for providing such a top quality service. Their paper ‘boy’s'  Christmas tip (h’es all of 40) is already in the bag!

I see Dacorum Council have painted the hill road from Berkhamsted to Potten End with hideous yellow lines. Why don’t they just ban parking along the whole length of the hill with a notice at either end instead of defacing a pleasant country road. Here in Piccotts End we try to keep the place looking attractive with plantings under the village signs. The only problem is that plants need water. I’ve chosen succulents like geraniums and begonias that can survive dry conditions. Even then a weekly trip with a filled watering can in the boot is required. The far end of the village will get done as soon as I can find a volunteer.

Room 101 at the Rex?

May 2011
I’m sure there is a sort of Room 101 at The Rex Cinema, Berkhamsted,  where a phone constantly rings and no one answers it. We have invited some friends for the weekend and have promised them a visit to our renowned local cinema. The problem is that we are in France the weekend the tickets go on sale and so a special plan is put in place. As soon as the clock strikes 10.30am on Saturday morning, the moment at which tickets go on sale, we will hit the phones while en route from Caen to Brittany. As this will have to be done via our mobiles I first check with Orange and Vodafone that we won’t be charged when we encounter the inevitable engaged tone. The film is The Lincoln Lawyer, hardly a blockbuster, and we had been assured by a nice man at the Box Office that we shouldn’t have much trouble getting through. One hour of solid, dual calling from myself and my wife has produced one moment of hope: a call is connected and is ringing, And ringing. And ringing. It’s not the first time this has happened. You think, ah good, I’m through. But you’re not. Maybe it’s The Rex’s idea of slow torture, made worse by the odd moment of hope. Eventually, after about an hour and a half and goodness knows how many hundred attempts, we finally get through and the booking is made. Our friends are thrilled. The Lincoln Lawyer is good Saturday night entertainment but the real pleasure is in being in The Rex. That’s why people put up with all the ridiculous hassle of obtaining a ticket! Not so sure whether they will in St Albans though.