Hold tight to your dreams

and get building!

There has been a lot to be concerned about in the news - the elevation of the hedgehog onto the IUCN Red List, climate change related extreme weather events, war in the middle east, famine in Sudan, oh, and the recrudescence (thank you Susie Dent for this new word for me) of the testiculator in chief - convicted felon and loathsome fellow, Trump.

For an opportunity to comment (I know I am opening myself up for some pushback from Trump’s minions here …) please pop over to the substack page.

So - in light of the grimness of the time I want to share with you something that has filled me with hope! Well, it started as as a something - this picture being the thing in question,

a most wonderful staircase showing an ingenious solution to overcoming the gravel board in a fence when making a hedgehog highway. But it has grown into a someone - Angela MacMahon - what a force of nature she is. 

Not only did she build this clever solution to hedgehogs little legs, but she has also filled her garden with an array of other ingenious creations.

When woodwork is your hobby, hedgehogs can become your friends … please - take inspiration from Angela and get creating. And here is the proof …

If the weather, the politics, the - well - everything - is getting you down, take heart also from the words of Chris Packham. I had the pleasure of chatting with him recently at the March for Clean Water -

he works so hard, makes me feel really rather inadequate - but - just after the news about Trump broke he wrote:

‘Things have just got a lot more difficult. Here’s what I think. I had no control over what just happened. None. But I do have control over how I will react to it. And I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good, the grip on my dreams just got tighter.’

That last bit ‘I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good, the grip on my dreams just got tighter.’ That really found its way into my heart. There is so much that is good and beautiful in this world - and we could sit and mope - or we could organise and do something. Build a hedgehog highway - become an ally to someone vulnerable - and above all, hold tight to your dreams.

Just because I have bills to pay … if you feel like signing up to Scribehound Gardening - I will get a portion of your subscription - which will encourage me to keep on talking about hedgehogs (and robins and squirrels and spiders and all sorts of wonderful wildlife.)