Bonfire night. BE A HERO! And GREAT NEWS for hedgehog lovers

Tomorrow afternoon, spread a tarpaulin/sheet by the bonfire, move the wood and stuff onto the tarp, checking for sleepy hedgehogs. All done? Take the chance to put nice DRY newspaper in the base of the fire as you pile the wood back up. Have a GREAT NIGHT and a clear conscience that there won't be a family of hoglets in there somewhere smile emoticon.

GREAT NEWS

Our 'luxury' hog house under our kitchen window
(complete with pretty blue paddly/drinking pool)
now has a hoggy resident!
We are THRILLED to bits.

He/she is still coming out at nights and we could hear him
gnashing away on catfood behind the litter bin
while we handed out sweets and hot chocolate from my
witch's couldron to hordes of Viking Halloween guests.

I've spread out a punctured airbed on top to keep out the weather.
I intended to nail it down but hoggy is asleep during the daytime
and I'd hit my thumbs in the dark. 

This is the inhabited side, with little footprints.

This is the other side. We are not sure if anyone is in there,
because Jakob was so surprised to see the first hoggy under the hay,
that we put the lid down quickly.
We didn't want to disturb the dear little thing.

Tonight Dr Watson plans to put a piece of paper down to
see if anyone leaves any footprints.

Six hoggies (Mummy + three babies, and two middle-sized)
have been coming for food since about the end of August,
so there are plenty of potential tenants.

Watch this space tomorrow for news.

No footprints outside the right-hand side yet...

Legejunglen - GREAT for a rainy day

Free for the adults and unlimited play once you've paid for the kids.

Laura (6) and Petra (1.5) were ready for an adventure the day I
took them to the play jungle in Slangerup. 

It is huge - especially by Danish standards.

But as you can see by the shutter speed, it soon became clear that Laura would be up,
down and off to the next challenge long before Petra made it past the first hurdle
- with me following up her rear.

I'm going to post this while I walk the dog and then put up some more photos.
He's crossing his legs, and not being the most tech-savvy blogger in the worls,
I wouldn't want to add 'washing the carpets' to my list of things to do today :).

WATCH THIS SPACE

Phew, that's better. And I've cleared up the hedgehog poo outside 
ours and the neighbours' too. 
There must be an industrial application for hedgehog poo - 
it has EXTREMELY effective adhesive qualities.

Good job they are so cute.

Anyway, back to the play jungle and the first ball pit.

The biggest slide was certainly the volcano.

Laura was great at finding handholds.

Petra seemed to think she could toddle on up there - look grandma, no hands!

Wow. Halfway up!

Near the top!

And parachuting down again. Good idea to wear leggings!

And no the person who left more than a CO2 footprint wasn't us, 
but it did make us think about getting angles of trajectory right!

Come on Grandma, you can do it!
Our next post will show more fun obstacles, including this 'mangle', which I was pleased I managed to get through. Headfirst, and fairly quickly. I didn't have much choice as both kiddies had shot through it in a matter of seconds and were heading off into the interior intestinal tract of the monster playground.

Hedgehog birthday party!

Happy 25th birthday soon, Zachary!

And as we'd hoped...

...he had special guests at his party. 

They thought it started at 7.30 pm so they were a little late, but very sweet and very thirsty!

SO KEEP PUTTING OUT WATER AND CHICKEN FLAVOURED CAT FOOD AND

YOU MIGHT GET SOME VISITORS TOO

NOT MILK 

If you see black poos about, with beetle bits in, don't worry about rats. 

It's your friendly hedgehogs leaving manure for your garden.

To top it all off, Jake's hedgehog muffins were featured in the Danish hedgehog society 

member's magazine! 

www.pindsvin.dk

Parkour with Street Movement

Schedule

Here's a superman photo, though it's probably technically
taken with totally the wrong setting.

Notice the special hand holds! Cool! 

You learn to jump and land softly and safely. First by landing on a circle chalked
on the ground until you're certain of your balance. Then if you like, landing on concrete blocks.

Friendly instructors are on hand.

And all the 'obstacles' are realistic street furniture.

Here they all are, training their tummy muscles.

Upside down, without getting a rollicking for putting footprints on the wall. 

Ooh look, everyone learns from watching each other -
and the instructors demonstrate the moves slowly first, giving useful tips.


So if you fancy it, give it a go, visit http://www.streetmovement.dk/ and trot along to a course
or turn up at the Experimentariet during the autumn half-term holiday,
and join in the parkour workshop every day.

Check out the details at:
https://experimentarium.dk/

Keep checking in for more photos roughly once a week.

NEXT WEEK: pretty dresses and soldiers with muskets at Kronborg.

Due to a technical hitch, impending Scout camp and heavy workload...

...here is a photo shot of Jakob taking 

a reluctant Dr Watson the Dog for a walk. 

Normal service and the promised photos, 

will be up and running,

like Watson, 

...as SOON as possible.

In other words, by tomorrow.

Apologies all round, parkour buddies.


PS They made it across the river without getting wet! 

Last Christmas at the open air museum

I guess Father Christmas's reindeer had a cold -
he was feeling a little horse, at least. 

Here's the cosy museum shop with plenty of ideas for good quality presents from the past. 

The sails were on at the mill, which was open by chance.
Check out the website to find out exactly when the mills are open at

 www.natmus.dk/museerne/frilandsmuseet

It would have been nice if that link had been blue 

but I guess the nissers (Danish Christmas goblins that play tricks) 

have been up to mischief.

A nice view is waiting at the top.

Oops here's the nice view.

And inside, you can see how different types of wood are used for
 the teeth, wheels and central treetrunk around which the mill turns
to make the most of the wind direction.

It was really impressive to see how flour was made all those years ago.

It was also interesting to think that mel in Danish = 'flour' in English
but we have 'wholemeal bread' in English too.

There were lots of houses to explore and big barns where
you could enjoy food and drink. But they were full of people who
might not want to be on a blog. So I've only used photos
without close-ups on faces except for these lovely ladies who
might well be serving again this year. 

Yummy!

Jake warmed up with a meatball and bread...

...before polishing off a traditional pork sandwich with all the trimmings.
Well not all the trimmings because there were hearts and nissers all over the place!
This is Denmark after all!

We'll be back this year for seconds!

Hedgehogs in our own back yard!

You won't see many photos of me on this blog.
But here's a very happy exception!

Watson and Jakob found not one but two baby hedgehogs sniffing about
 in our garden and called me out to see. I didn't have time to put shoes on.

Run snail run!

Jake took photos and we fed them with kitten food.
They must have come for the water I put out in a bowl every night.

Then they trotted back off into the hedge. And Jake went back to bed.
AMAZING!