What do you do when you spot another blogger?

On the train home from work today I looked up from my iPod and did a double-take – right in front of me was a fellow Berkhamsted blogger (if I can still call myself that, given my lack of recent posts) whom I recognised from his numerous Flickr photos. My first thought was to say hello and introduce myself, but I quickly realised how wierd this would be! I really had nothing to talk about other than the fact that we had both uploaded various photos to the Berkhamsted Flickr group and he had made me an admin many months back. It’s a strange feeling, thinking that it isn’t the first time that you have met someone and wanting to say “hi” but actually having nothing more of any real interest to say.

This happened to me before when I spotted the Station Master (of the now defunct Station Master’s Weblog fame) at one of the tube stations that I use on my commute – again, I thought of saying “hi” but had nothing to really talk about other than the fact that I read his blog. Not many avenues of conversation there.

Nobody wants to come across as a stalker!

Thanks

After a really long and difficult day at work on Monday, my faith in humanity was restored this morning by the complete stranger who saw of running, stopped and offered of a lift to the station. Thank you, whoever you were.

The Rex…of Cyprus?

Saw this building while on holiday in September and it made me chuckle – thousands of miles apart from our Rex in Berko but I am sure many happy nights have been spent watching movies here too.

Morgan Freeman in The Seven Samurai (well, almost…)

We went to see the Sunday matinee of The Seven Samurai at The Rex last weekend. I’ve wanted to see the film for ages and it was great that a chance came up at our lovely cinema. I wasn’t disappointed – for a Japanese film made in the 1950s it was surprisingly accessible and I could see exactly why it was remade as a western.

I couldn’t help feeling that I had seen the actor playing the main samurai somewhere before. Towards the end of the film it hit me – he was the spitting image of Morgan Freeman. A little digging turfed up this picture of Takashi Shimura – take a look for yourself to see what I mean. I think it was that he was doing so much of the ’staring in disbelief and not daring to speak’ type-poses that really did it for me. I thought it was really cool that I wasn’t the first person to make this connection – see this review at the Internet Movie Database.

Great film, great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Fancy a plot of your own in Berkhamsted?

Well, now you can buy it on eBay.

Badgers!

Ever since we had our lawn relaid somebody or something has been busy beavering away in the dead of night digging holes. The damage wasn’t too bad at first, but recently a massive chunk of lawn was uprooted and we’ve had to completely reseed it. Still we didn’t know exactly what was causing the problem.

I found out on Tuesday. Arriving home very late from work, I felt that something was snuffling and rustling around on a neighbour’s drive. I had a look but I couldn’t see anything. The same sound seemed to be even louder in our back garden. I unlocked the door, popped my bag inside and grabbed the torch. Wandering up a big dark garden in the night isn’t a bag of laughs and I could feel every hair standing on end as I tried to locate what was making the noise. Suddenly I saw the unmistakable stripy head of a badger looking at me as it scrabbled through the gap between our fence and the shed. I legged it – I’ve read that badgers can be nasty creatures when they feel like it and I didn’t want to get into a fight. The badger made it through the gap, saw me and then sped off up the garden at a billion miles an hour. It was awesome.

Although they’re a pain for the lawn, they really are very very cool. Don’t ask me why, but they are. Now that it’s suddenly got a little frosty they’ve been leaving tracks all over our garden and I managed to grab a shot of some guilty-looking paw prints from our garden step. Can’t wait to see our little visitors again.

The Moon

I just looked out of the window and saw that tonight we have a big fat moon over Berkhamsted! I managed to capture it using my wife’s camera just before it started to come up too high in the sky and shrink.

Train arrivals

Going to pick up someone from the station but not sure if their train is running late? You can now check using the live arrivals board on the National Rail Enquiries website. Or you can do it by text message. Great stuff.

Another great bike ride around Berkhamsted

My wife and I went on another fantastic bike ride around Berkhamsted and Ashridge a couple of weekends back. It’s amazing how much wildlife and natural beauty is on our doorstep here. This time we managed to catch lots of lovely bluebells as well as be admitted to climb Bridgewater Monument. You can see the photos I took in my Flickr set or view a video from the top of Bridgewater Monument below.

The loudest tears on the way home

On my journey home on the train last night a young child in my carriage was having the loudest crying fit that I’ve heard for quite some time. You know something is loud and out-of-the-ordinary when people on the train actually start looking at each other – yes, acknowledging each other’s presence – and smiling in a “can you believe how loud that is?” sort of way. I can’t believe what a state children can get themselves worked up into! You just want to ask them what really could be so bad. Like these things do, it stopped almost as abruptly as it started and left an eerie silence on the carriage.

As I was busy sorting a few emails out on my PDA at the time and found that I couldn’t concentrate I quickly hit the record button with the intention of posting it here, but, listening to it now out of context, it just sounds harrowing and horrible. Consider yourself spared.