Today’s picture shows Mrs Tootlepedal pricking out some nicotiana. They will smell gorgeous in the summer.
The day started for me with a bit of a shock. When I went into the boiler room to open the back door and sniff the air, I found a broken jar smashed on the floor and a packets of weedkiller from a box spilled beside it. Mrs Tootlepedal and I feared the worst. For a few days past, in the quiet of the evening, our peace had been disturbed by the broom falling to the ground in the boiler room. This was slightly worrying. What could have caused it? After finding the debris this morning, it was obvious that something was about in the boiler room. Further investigation revealed animal droppings.
Mrs Tootlepedal is of a pessimistic turn of mind and thought at once of rats. I am more fanciful and wondered about poltergeists. I rather discounted rats because of the lack of anything chewed. Anyway, Dropscone and I went out for the morning pedal while Mrs Tootlepedal anxiously researched rat droppings on the internet. By the time we had had our coffee and girdle scones, the miscreant had been narrowed down to a rat or a hedgehog and there the matter was left for the time being.
It had been raining lightly while we cycled and the rain continued all day. This made taking flower pictures a rather unattractuve option but I sneaked out in one of the lulls.
As well as the flowers, the veg garden is progressing.
One benefit of a wet day is that it encourages you do things that you might not do if you could go outside and I managed to put two weeks of the E&L into the database today. As a result I have very nearly caught up with the indexers for the first time for ages. If I can get another wet day this week, that should do the trick.
In spite of the rain, the bird feeders were busy again. I think the need to feed the young may be driving our increased traffic but I don’t know for sure.
In the evening, our latest B & B guest came in the back door and remarked to Mrs Tootlepedal that she liked our fancy doorstop. We don’t have a doorstop, fancy or plain so Mrs Tootlepedal went out to investigate and our mystery of the morning was solved.
Resisting the temptation to use it as a boot scraper, Mrs Tootlepedal took it out into the garden and found a home for it in a handy pile of logs. We shall see if it is still about tomorrow. Needless to say, we are very pleased that it wasn’t a rat (or a poltergeist).
Like you, glad your visitor was only a hedgehog and not something nasty.
Lovely flowers in the rain, we are still rainless apart from, literally, a few drops yesterday morning.
Well, the hedgehog didn’t look big enough for a boot scraper anyway!
Pleased you discovered the animal that was creeping about!
So funny!