Substack diary no.144: Tuesday, 5th. May 2026

On this calm grey somewhat quiet Bank Holiday morning I find myself staring at a cursor and wondering what to write. Wait a minute… It’s Tuesday! Since when was a Bank Holiday on a Tuesday? This is not just a case of retirement ‘what day is it’ syndrome; it is actually Bank Holiday quiet out there.

I have a mystery! I think it may be related to hedgehogs and, if that is the case, then I have particularly athletic hedgehogs that can do things I do not think hedgehogs should be able to do, unless they have learned to fly, and that is just plain silly. But how else do you explain the evidence?

Every morning I have a wash but the plumbing system in my home is so poor I waste a bowlful of water before it is warm enough to fill the sink. Except that I do not waste it: I fill a bowl which will, later in the morning, be emptied into the pond right before I feed the fish.

Since my pond is ‘broken’ – it has a leak that was ‘fixed’ by my landlord last autumn – I realise that birds find it difficult to reach the water. I’ve watched them struggle gingerly down the steep slope of the pond liner, probably digging their claws in at the same time. I decided to fill a large dish with water and set it down near the pond, but I have never actually seen birds drinking from it. Yesterday, the dish had gone.

As I was attacking some weeds I found the dish, only about three metres away, on flat ground beneath a rather substantial bay tree in a corner of the garden. Something moved it. But what? I have long suspected that a family of hedgehogs have set up house under a fence and ivy lean-to beneath the Bay, and this appeared to be proof. They moved the water to a spot where youngsters could more easily get to it.

But that is not the real mystery, striking though it is. The thought of a parent hedgehog nosing a tray of water along the ground in the dead of night, carefully so as not to spill too much, was delightful. The real mystery is the appearance of hedgehog droppings, usually on broken paving slabs around the pond, had now appeared on a wooden slat on a park bench beside the pond.

Now, what I want to know is this: how could a hedgehog possibly climb up the curved metal legs of the bench and get onto the slats? And get back down again? I have absolutely no idea. It seems impossible. The only explanation I can think of is that an unusually tall Devon pixie put the hedgehog there, scared the crap out of it, then returned it to the ground, just to have a good laugh at my expense! That is just plain daft. However, the mystery remains…