Authors Electric

  Hedgehogs  are the UK's favourite mammal with more Google searches and Instagram hashtags than any other animal. They are now listed as vulnerable on the UK's red list of mammals – however, this only holds true for the countryside. In suburban gardens they are doing very well indeed. I attribute this to the plummeting cost of trail cameras. I have had one for several years, when it was a very expensive piece of kit. These days, you can get perfectly good ones on Amazon for £50. I put mine out one night in March to see what was digging in one of our vegetable beds. The culprit, unsurprisingly, was a fox. But scuttling away a bit later on was a hedgehog. I couldn’t believe it. I’d lived in the house for twelve years, a stone’s throw from the M25, and never seen one – because they’re nocturnal. But more and more people are discovering them, thanks to their cameras, and doing exactly what I did – putting out food. And now they’re thriving; there’s a Facebook group called Hedgeho...

I've been thinking hard about this for some time and now I've come to a decision. I think this will be my last regular Authors Electric blog. I haven't been very well since March and though I'm not far off being restored, I feel that I have to jettison a few things. Writing a regular monthly blog - and after five years at it, trying to find something worth writing about - has become quite a burden, albeit a fulfilling one. However, I find I've picked up a few new projects - the 'ghost writing' I mentioned last month, Dora's story about escaping from Communist Bulgaria, the last part of which I am still waiting for, the birthstone story project and the strange fact that interest has been shown in my long-ago failed novel about Coleridge, the salvaging of which is now a point of honour - at the same time as losing some of my old energy. After all, the years are chugging on remorselessly. However, I won't give in to the temptation to write a f...

Well, this is one for a start. Writing a blog post instead of knuckling down to chapter twenty-three. What excuses do you find for not getting on with that book you’re writing? There are all the usual ones, of course. Cleaning, cooking, gardening, exercising – and ironing, if you’re really desperate. The more specialised ones, like re-decorating and car maintenance and keeping up with your social life. The once a year ones, like… no, we won’t go there in case once a year translates in your house as squalor.             And then there’s wildlife.             For me, this is the killer. The frogs in the pond, the bird table, the nest boxes, the walks on the common. Two years ago we had great tits nesting a few yards from the house. Breakfast could be taken in the conservatory, watching the action. First of all there was the survey. This was extremely thorough, and invol...