As explained in a previous blog we have picked our local hedgehog rescue and hospital centre as a charity to support (Prickles Hedgehog Rescue). They care for many hundreds of hedgehogs every year who are brought to them injured or orphaned, or simply disorientated. Spilling over in their current small premises they rely heavily on direct donations to survive and we are pleased to donate £10 from every booking we get. First time around, after one year we were able to give £290 and at the end of this second summer we're giving another £150. Not a lot in the bigger scheme of things but they are getting a lot of support from local wildlife carers.
And the element of enlightened self-interest is there: hedgehogs are an important part of the eco-system eating lots of snails and slugs. We know we have at least one hedgehog in our garden, we hope he is gorging on the slimy chaps. No doubt slugs and snails play their part in the eco-system too - but they do tend to eat a disproportionately large amount of baby veg plants, and indeed some more established ones. That's pretty disheartening at times but overall we aren't complaining.

We aspire to having an orchard. Just a little one - nothing huge. We had one before in a previous house (Ivy House) where we had apples, pears and plums at the top of our garden. So in our garden we have the back more wild area of the garden earmarked for the orchard and Mary has been putting in  a few small fruit trees. 
To my untrained eyes they look such frail sticks, and the vision of big gnarly trees laden with fruit seems a lifetime away. 
But wait - is that not several spectacularly "apple" looking apples on one of the saplings? Yes it is. It seems we may be getting some very fine fruit, in very modest volumes, even in the early years. How sweet is that!