I'm back . . . and so are they !

I'm back - report on the exhibition launch to follow. I'm just waiting for a little bit of informatin - one I know you're all going to ask for if I don't supply it, so better to get it now than to wait till you're all demanding it.

So in a quick catch up -

Thank you to Minna who kindly pointed out that the cover I'd put up on Thursday was in fact a Finnish edition. The Swedish, Danish etc editions are all so very similar and sometimes it's hard to tell which language they are in. Thank you for putting me right Minna! Living in Finland, you should know.

Secondly - to answer Janet who asked what authors do with the foreign editions. That's a great question. I keep one copy of the translations but I hate to waste the rest. I'm always looking for good ways of using them.

So far I've given them to an international women's group, donated some to college libraries where they have a large and varied range of language courses, donated some to libraries where they need foreign language books for non English readers. Recently I have found that women's prisons have many non-UK nationals who never see any book in their own language and I've passed on foreign editions there too.

But as I say I'm always looking for good ideas about places that can use the foreign editions, so if anyone has any more suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them.

And to explain that headline - they're back! Just as soon as I posted about the Hecks, saying that I knew they were about but I hadn't seen them, then they appeared last night and started eating the crunchies loudly and enthusiastically.

So here we have the first Heck photos of the year. The first one to appear was a smallish hedgehog - possibly last year's baby Heck. I'm not quite sure how fast they grow but I think this one was not small enough to be one of this year's babies.

And then later a Bigger Heck came and crunched its way through the food - much to the amazement and fury of Flora who watched appalled through the glass in the door as a strange prickly creature ate her crunchies right in front of her. I think this is the first time she has ever seen a hedgehog. She doesn't go out at night so she won't have encountered them in the garden.

The bigger hedgehog has greyer prickles when compared with the smaller one which was almost a rusty brown colour.

So we have at least 2 Hecks reappearing this year. We have our fingers crossed for more babies to keep the family generations going. And I must remember to report them to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for their survey of hedgehogs all over the country.