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Me, I still think this is an animation. I mean, this is too ridiculously cute to be real. It's not nearly April 1 though, so I think I may tentatively trust the London Zoological Society when they say they have filmed a real long-eared jerboa.

Puir wee whaley. :-(

I hope this does not sound disrespectful, but I am really cheered by this piece of news:

Shocked but alive, residents of New Orleans zoo emerge from Katrina

Why did the animals survive? Nobody expected them to evacuate on their own and so the zookeepers stockpiled resources for them.

The big cats were kept well fed. "We invite journalists in, lock the gates and then they are never heard of again," he joked.

In fact the lions and other fierce felines had bellyfulls of meat thanks to a two week supply kept in massive freezers powered by generators.

For years, the zoo has been preparing for just such a storm, reinforcing concrete structures that house most animals during the hurricane, organizing emergency supplies and preparing for the potential evacuation of staff.

The director:

As flood waters rose in the low-lying city in the hours after the storm, he had feared they would drown the animals, Maloney said.

"I was this close to building the ark," he said.

Well, after a long hiatus, I seem to be working again. Nothing yesterday, six pages the day before, ten pages tonight. Sixty pages to go, it'll be over in six days if I can keep it up.

It's raining heavily and I have prepared a little box wrapped tightly in plastic with packing tape for the hedgehog, but he hasn't got into it. The box is in the only marginally dry place, that is, in front of the garden door, so maybe he feels too exposed there. Or maybe he's holed up somewhere a bit drier. Oh well, he's a wild animal and it's not so cold anyway, he can weather a bit of summer rain I guess. I wish I had a better refuge to offer him. (Or her: I don't expect to be able to tell its gender any time soon.)

The cat also was out in the rain, ran in when I called her, let herself be towelled dry purring loudly and leaving wet paw prints all over my white duvet, and has been sleeping on my blue blanket with a paw over her eyes ever since.

The hedgehog was seen again, last night at three, eating boldly and noisily out of the cat bowl with cat food specifically left out for him. When he noticed me, he unhurriedly turned and wobbled back into the rosemary bush, shaking a back paw. This morning a torrential rain pretty much drenched the cat food, so I had to replace it. Then, some more rain. Oh well. I'm sure he doesn't mind wet food.

I woke up too early, finally transferred in front of the TV, and was kept awake and totally riveted by a feature on PuppyChannel about hand-raising cloud leopards.

I was still with migraine today, but I went out to check out Benetton's new collection. I wasn't going to buy anything, of course.

Well, the black pencil skirt was dirt cheap and very flattering, so was the burgundy top, and the pink suede decollete shoes while not cheap were very cute, and I was definitely going to need the checkered zip-up knit sweater to go with the shoes.

I was good though in that I firmly resisted buying things on the grounds that I needed serious stuff if I was going to get the job. Since I might not get the job, for starters.

I walked back - I need the exercise - and promply fell asleep in front of the TV, to be woken up two hours later by a strong voice reciting, of all things, the Via Crucis. For mysterious reasons, Blob, a very hip and wickedly cool semi-clandestine program always on the verge of being shut down, was showing a montage of the late Pope when still hale and hearty celebrating the Via Crucis. It was affecting and quite spooky.

Now I should... really... work. Yes.

So this morning, quite a bit before the dawn started doing its rose-tinted fingers thing, I was woken up by noises. At first I took them to be the cat, because there was some pretty clear pushing things against plastic and crunching pellets noises, but there was also something else that I couldn't place. I woke up, blinked, tried to place the noise, failed. It was something like a buzzing, or a fluttering, but not quite. It was almost like...

...almost like a hedgehog in my living room.

I went downstairs cautiously, because I thought it might be a bat or a large moth trapped and trying to get through a window, but no bats, moths or large insects were visible and the noise had stopped.

There was, however, a modest poodle of pee and some scat in one corner. An easier to clean corner this time, thankfully.

Ah-ha, I thought. I took up my flashlight, feeling a lot like CSI, and started doing a circuit of the livingroom looking behind furniture. Boy, that room could stand some cleaning.

And there it was, doing its best to look like a rock.

Small hedgehog intruder This is the hedgehog in my living room tonight.

I took (a picture, and then) out some leather winter gloves, picked it up as Charlie had suggested, and placed it gently outside, close to some cat food. It slowly uncurled (watched with riveting but completely non-huntery interest by the cat, who had joined me at this stage) but ignored the food and started crawling away. Nimble creatures they ain't.

Hedgie curled up in a ball I couldn't resist taking some photos of his curled-up state

Unfortunately it was still dark and the camera couldn't really focus, so I only have one decent foto of the critter. Anyway, after tormenting it a bit with the flash I picked it up again and placed it gently among the sage and rosmary, where it went playing the rock for some time and then shuffled away.

I really wonder how he got into my living room. The only possibility is that he sneaked inside today while the door was opened for the cat and only started exploring at night.

Bad hedgehog. There's not a lot that scares, them, so I think training him not to get inside is going to be hard. Not to talk about toilet-training him.

In order: ant battlefield on my doorstep - it seems I have two warring anthills in my garden. This morning my doorstep was littered with hundreds of very small corpses, and dozens of individual fights were clearly visible, two ants fighting each other or two of them ganging up on a third. I remember Emiliano, when he was still living here, being genuinely upset at this evidence of interspecies aggression.

I left them to their slaughter and went up for a nap, only to be roused by growling. Went down and found: dismembered drangonfly on the kitchen mop-carpet, clearly the work of the cat. Beautiful ginger cat with green eyes trying to slink away while Zip chased him. Once vaulted the chainlink, he was joined by another, larger white-and grey cat, a soft-furred thug of a cat by all evidence, who looked inside our garden speculatively. I stood there watching them watching each other with that "nothing will happen for a long while and then it's furious catfight" air, then I closed the door to spare everybody bodily hurt, and that was when I noticed a small lizard obviously pretty badly wounded wiggling on the garden tiles.

Well, the world is a cruel and wonderful place sometimes. At least the hedgehog can't be buggered at all.

Left behind poop. From the number and the state of solidification of droppings, I'd say this wasn't his first visit. I'd be happy to leave him the run of the kitchen, if only he would poop outside. Grumph. Behind the fridge too, where it's difficult to mop up.

I only noticed him by chance, because he moved a little. I looked closely and there he was, trying to hide in the shadow under the fireplace. I think he's a young hedgehog because he (or she) looks smaller than the other one I saw in the next garden. Evidently he got in through the open door and lost his way or was trapped.

The cat trotted up to me, started purring, then noticed the intruder and went all tense. I placed her outside, closed the door, and watched the hedgehog wobble behind the refrigerator.

I don't think she can kill it - the other hedgehog seemed totally unperturbed by her - but to be on the safe side, I closed the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house, and placed her food and water inside. Also, I opened the garden door wide, hoping the hedgehog finds his way out.

I would have liked to pet him, but quite apart from the quills factor, I think he was dead scared.