Well, it was good back last February when we got frog-spawn. And it's lovely to see tadpoles getting around in our front garden pond. Seemed like Mother nature was applauding our getting that pond put in.

But the last two nights, from 10 p.m. onwards, we've been watching a couple of hedgehogs come carefully out from under the box-tree hedge and help themselves to the bird-food that the wild birds have dropped from the feeders.

They must be combining our garden with one or more of the neighbours' gardens because there can't possibly be enough hedgehog food just in our small plot. But it felt amazingly special to see them.