Probably I have mentioned in earlier posts the fact that I am encouraging a hedgehog to take up residence in our garden. I have built a little shelter in which every night I put out a little food, and there is a supply of water. I don’t think that it has accepted by invitation actually to live in the shelter, but clearly it is visiting it because the food is cleaned out every night. I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed by only meeting it once, but I do like the idea that I am doing my bit for wildlife, and especially for a species that is declining in numbers.
I was really amused this morning when I went down the garden to collect the empty dish. Instead of my having to fish it out from inside the shelter, it had been pushed out onto the board in front. Suddenly I had a fantasy that the hedgehog might have been reading Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. “Please sir, I want some more!”
As for the painting: “Norwegian Wood” is coming along well. The work has been immensely demanding of concentration in relation to the detailed surface I have been trying to create. I am pleased with the result so far. My next task is to go beyond the “wood” to the “Norwegian”, and I suspect that will be an even more difficult matter.