janewilliams20

A few weeks back, we found a very young hedgehog wandering around the place, and took it to a friend of ours who runs a small Hedgehog Hospital. He was declared to be so young he wasn't even weaned, and taken in for fattening up. Number 21, as he was named, has since grown into a big fat hedgehog, literally ten times the weight he was when we found him, and today we went back to pick him up and release him near where he was found. A "soft release", with nestbox (a Hogitat) provided, and we'll be putting out food and water for him for the foreseeable future. He seems happy enough in his new home, and we are resisting the sentimental temptation to name him. "I am not a number, I am a free hedgehog!" seems to be as far as we're allowed to go. He's aggressive, anti-social to humans, and generally shows all the right characteristics for a hedgehog who's going to survive in the wild. I still think that furry little nose is cute, though, even if it does want to bite me.

So, Number 21 released, all three of us were ready for food ourselves. Go out? - no, not the way I'm coughing. Phone for pizza? But they'd take forever. There's a big pizza in the outside chest freezer.... just a minute, should the freezer be making that noise? And aren't freezers supposed to, well, freeze things...?

Tomorrow, Dave will investigate freezer repair or replacement. Tonight, we have distributed freezer contents among our fridge-freezer, next-door's freezer, Hedgehog Expert's fridge and freezer, and our stomachs.

It's a good job we decided on the low-cost route - we caught the freezer before the contents had defrosted rather than afterwards.