SILLY SATURDAY AND GOODBYE, HOGGY!

Hello Lovely Blippers,

We have noticed in the last few weeks that Hoggy has been eating much more than usual and wondered why, but now we know.  He told us last night that he was leaving us.   As you can imagine, we all felt very upset, but he told us that it would only be for a few months and then he would be back.

Of course, we all wanted to know where he was going and wondered if he was going on a great adventure, but he told us that he was going to “hibernate”.  We thought that must be a faraway place - how silly is that - but he explained that that was why he had been eating a lot more - so that he could build up his fat stores and conserve his energy so that he could survive if we had a very cold winter.  We wondered whether Mrs. HCB would be hibernating too, because we had noticed that she has put a bit of weight on recently - but don’t tell her we said so!

Anyway, back to what we did today - very early this morning - before 7.30 - we squeezed through a gap underneath the fence that leads out to the sycamore tree just outside Mr. and Mrs. HCB’s garden and Hoggy started to look around for somewhere to “bed down” for the winter months.  Some of the leaves were a bit wet and quite soggy,  so Hoggy said he needed to find somewhere warm and cosy so we all helped him to look around and eventually found the perfect spot - under some bushes with plenty of dry leaves.

We all enjoyed playing amongst the leaves and where they weren’t so wet, they made a lovely scrunching sound - so we had lots of fun, trampling in the leaves and throwing them around.  Leyburn especially liked it because he hadn’t seen lots of leaves on the ground before - in fact, he got so excited, we had to calm him down.

Penny Penguin said she hoped it would soon snow, but she got shouted down by Tiny, who said he didn’t like snow that much and then Snowy piped up that it was wonderful and she couldn’t wait either!  What a mixed bunch we are!

You can see that Reeth snuggled up to me and said that it would be best to stay close to someone to keep warm, and I quite agreed.   I think Admirer would be happy that we were all giving Hoggy a good send-off and she would definitely have joined in. 

Anyway, after we had all had a good play in the leaves, it was time to leave Hoggy - and I have to confess we all had a tear in our eye.  We will miss him, but must tell you that if you find a hibernating hedgehog in your garden, please don’t disturb him - he needs to stay in that deep sleep.   You can see Hoggy in amongst the leaves in the extra shot and I  must admit that it was quite sad waving “Goodbye” to him, but we know he will back in the Spring so that is something good to look forward to and we all need that.

We hope you all have a good weekend, wherever you are and wherever you go - the weather is supposed to get much colder, so perhaps Hoggy has the right idea!  

With love from

JH Ted, Tiny, Snowy, Penny Penguin, Hoggy, Leyburn and Reeth xxxxxxx