Sarah Todd: Prickly issues of the week as hedgehogs take up residence

NO DOUBT somebody will write a letter complaining about the photograph below of our daughter holding a hedgehog.

Before reaching for the Basildon Bond, please be assured that she's been told not to make a habit of picking them up. In mitigation it seemed mean not to grab the camera when she was so chuffed with herself for handling a "real live hedgehog".

Our little visitor was as bold as brass. He seems to be part of a family that's made our garden their home. They never tuck themselves into a ball when we pass and seem to smile "hello". To be honest, it's only a handful of times I've ever seen a hedgehog's face. Whenever we've previously come across them they've been rolled up on the defensive. But not this lot. Their appearance has done the seemingly impossible and made me angry about my well-documented allergy to the BBC's Countryfile and Springwatch programmes. If I could have put up with more than a minute of Kate Humble, I might have learnt some useful information about our prickly pals. To me, it seems unusual to have seen so many out and about during the day. But maybe that's something to do with the time of year?

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Coincidentally, the children had recently read a book called The Hodgeheg by Dick King-Smith, which tells the story of a little hedgehog called Max who gets a bump on the head while trying to cross a busy road and starts mixing up all his words – hence "hodgeheg".

There were some funny words in the "dogs for sale" section of the local newspaper. The Husband picked the circled adverts up in horror – "we're not getting another dog…" he started to boil. What had actually caught my eye were the names. I'd heard of a Labradoodle (Labrador and Poodle cross) but here was a Whipjack (Jack Russell cross Whippet) and some Jackapoo (Jack Russell cross Poodle) pups.

Talking of reading, this week we got the Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) publication Farming Link and the county council's free newspaper.

Perhaps it's jealousy at the number of journalists who must have cushy jobs on such publicly-funded publications, but in my mind it's time they were – to use an old newspaper term – spiked. Why not redeploy the writing talent to making both council and government literature easier to understand? There's probably a government leaflet on hedgehogs. But it would probably take half a day to read.

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