On Friday, I travelled home really late and took the Northern Line. When on the tube trains, sometimes I just sleep - my stop is the end of the line; sometimes I read; sometimes I like to watch the other passengers; and sometimes I like listening to language tapes or CDs.

Anyway, at one stop, the train doors opened and...in flew a wasp! Well, I'm not terrified of wasps, I have been stung in the past, and it's bearable - but I'm not stupid. I moved to the other end of the carriage. As we travelled to the next stop, I thought even this is daft. Why risk getting stung when I can just get off and catch the next tube train? So that's what I did. Anyone reading this (does anyone read this?) might wonder why I didn't just go to the next carriage, but the windows between the tube carriages were open to keep it cooler, so the wasp could fly to another carriage as easily as flying the length of one carriage.

On the next tube train I was sort of resting, drifting off to sleep. I was going to listen to some language CD, but I hadn't got my CD player out of my briefcase. So, I was attentive when some people came in and asked whether the train went to Morden or maybe it was one of the stops along the way. I was able to reassure them that they were on the right train. After that I decided to close my eyes and get a nap.

Then I heard the woman next to me aim some comment at me about having a good evening or something. Anyway we got talking briefly and it turned out that we were both just starting a two week break from work. I was looking forward to spending two weeks of quality time with my wife and young daughters; she was going to Edinburgh, where her boyfriend comes from (I think she said) and Glasgow and was meeting up with a friend or relative from New Zealand. It was nice to speak to someone on the tube - normally people keep themselves to themselves. (Actually, I am being a little hypocritical writing that because I normally like to just stay on a quiet carriage with no speaking)

When she left, we wished each other a good holiday, and I went back to my language CD.

Well, that was that for the tube journey home; but there was a very weird incident on the short walk from Morden tube station to our house. I suddenly realised that someone was running up close to me. I turned round and some young, thin, tall, white guy very nearly hit or slap me, but just pulled back at the last minute. He looked really strange as though he might be on drugs or mentally ill. We didn't speak. After that he hung around really close behind me as I walked on quite fast. I stopped and let him go by only to find that he was then hardly moving. He started moving a little further away, so that I was thinking that it might be better to walk home, by different streets, when a car pulled up and someone asked me if I wanted a lift.

Normally, I would never offer or accept a lift from strangers. However, they had seen the incident and had thought that he had hit me. They drove me around a little just for a few minutes, and dropped me so that I was close to home but from another direction. They were very pleasant people so far as I could tell. In the back were two women; a man was driving. The person next to him was a woman as well, so far as I recall. I can't remember much else, except that they did have a dog in the back of the car, which was well behaved and quiet. I can't even recall their ages, perhaps it was a couple with two daughters in the back.

Anyway I got home and told my wife about it. She pointed out that it was a big decision on my part to get into the car. She said that in Turkey some gangs might pull a similar stunt, except that the car just contains other gang members. That thought hadn't occurred to me at the time, just a second's pause while I evaluated that it was better to be in the car than out on the street - which turned out to be correct.

I can't say that I was really shaken by it, after all nothing really happened. I suspect that it was a drug addict who was going to try and attack me for some reason, but that he didn't manage to take me by surprise.

At the time I was vaguely thinking about how I would fight him. I have done martial arts in the past, but that was a long time ago. Most likely my moves would have been effective enough to scare off someone who didn't really want a fight, but no more than that. Maybe now I would be completely useless in a fight. I might have found that a technique surprised by being very or even too effective. In any case, nothing really happened and I could hardly attack someone on the grounds that I found them threatening. With hindsight, I could have challenged him, but I think that I did do the correct thing.

Perhaps I'll report it to the police. I can't really say a crime happened, but possibly it is the kind of thing that they can keep on file for police intelligence.

The thing that is disconcerting is that this all happened so close to home. It makes me worry more about making sure that my wife is not out late at night.