I have not forgotten you! Just waiting ... waiting for politicians to settle down and grow up so that we can get back to the important business of trying to protect the precious nature, without which our lives lose meaning and quality. As soon as we get calm I will be joining the queue to meet the new ministers and get clarity on whether we have achieved our shared goal for hedgehog highways.

In the meantime - I can't (and wouldn't want to) avoid hedgehogs. I want to introduce you to someone important ... yesterday I got to spend some time with the new Hedgehog Officer who has taken over running the Hedgehog Street campaign.

Grace Johnson has clearly got a thing about nocturnal mammals, coming to us from the Bat Conservation Trust! She came to visit me in Oxford - and that coincided with me taking on responsibility for a hedgehog (just for 10 days) while the rehabber goes on holiday. It also coincided with a baby hedgehog being found to not be putting on weight, so we took that one to St Tiggywinkles ... 

The photograph of Grace was taken in the early evening (my camera is good in low light) and as the hedgehog was being moved into a pet carrier for the short journey to my street - the hedgehog is being treated for an eye infection, hence the slightly crusty eye (I add those details as there are some people so hyper vigilant that they would rather pick up perceived misdemeanours than accept that I might be aware of what I am doing.)

The Hedgehog Street campaign, a collaboration between the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People's Trust for Endangered Species, is the springboard from which this petition has leapt - and it is important that we keep pushing the message about the importance of habitat connectivity to all who are willing to listen.

Each of us with a garden can play our part, of course, but it is to the developers that we must turn our attention as they have the capacity to create so much change in the way new estates are constructed ... They will only do that if there is a combination of legal pressure and public opinion. And that is why I keep on with this petition ... and why it is important that we keep sharing it far and wide. 

I will have an autumn specific update coming soon ... just be careful as you begin to tidy up in your garden ... remember you might be sharing it with some gorgeous little creatures that need our help!

And as an eccentric add-on - here is a short rant I gave from within a tiger cage at Shepreth Wildlife Park ... thank you Zoe Broughton for filming me ... I managed to get out before the tigers returned!