Saturday 10th June 2006

I was so anxious about Harry hedgehog going to the Forest Council yesterday. Nicole and I walked with him as far as we were allowed and then just had to wait for him until he re-emerged a couple of hours later. When we saw him shuffling through the twigs he was smiling the biggest smile I had ever seen and as he started to talk to us the tears started tumbling down his little cheeks. It turns out that the Forest Councillors have been keeping an eye on what has been happening and have been delighted by what Harry is doing. They feel bad about turning down the den application on the grounds they didn’t want him to live in the wood and have asked him to accept their apology. They have also said they would like to build a proper Centre for Orphaned Animals and community activities in the wood, where not only can he run the youth club from but other things as well and the best bit is that they have asked if he will be the centre’s manager and have a little house on site as part of the development. There would also be a dormitory for any of the animals that needed a place to stay. We all hugged each other with delight and as we walked back discussing it excitedly he stopped and casually said ‘Oh and Alfie they said they are going to write to you to say that you can build your den as well.’ I just yelped in delight and ran round in circles chasing my tail and then yelped because I accidentally caught it. I was so happy. At last a place of my very own. It won’t be quite the same if Harry isn’t going to live in part of it but it will still give me somewhere to escape to when my master and mistress mention the word training.

By the time I got home I found my mistress busy cleaning the car, again! She seems to be obsessed with it. So I told her I didn’t understand. In the four months up to a couple of weeks ago I haven’t seen her clean it once and now she seems to be doing it all the time. So she explained they were planning to use it for the wedding and she wanted it to be all sparkly. In all the excitement going on I had almost forgotten the wedding. She and the master were trying to decide what the menu was going to be the other day, it made me even more disappointed that I won’t be going. To be honest, I quite fancied the children’s menu but with additional scraps from the main one. I’m not above a bit of begging if it is going to get me extra food! I’m actually learning to beg really nicely and in a way that seems to be almost irresistible, with my mistress anyway. My master, particularly when eating a bag of Twiglets, refuses point-blank to share any of them with me.