It has taken almost two years since this post, but I’m happy to report that the rumours are true. Last night, coming home from an event in the “I’m in way over my head” category (not a particularly pleasant experience* but I’m still trying to convince myself that I’m in it for the challenge), I finally spotted the neighbourhood raccoon. It was sniffing something quite intently and I managed to get fairly close before it noticed me and hightailed it up our very own street.

The hedgehogs are doing fine as well but since the evenings are general still rather cold (the weather having been very strange this year, with one-digit night-time temperatures until pretty much this week), we haven’t been out enough to see a lot of them. We have had repeated fox sightings (and a very healthy specimen with a particularly luxurious tail among them), and the husband seems to keep running into frogs in odd places on his walks.

Not quite in our neighbourhood but on a motorbike outing the other day (and still within city limits), we saw a deer happily munching on some leaves before gracefully bounding off. Plus, the husband has packed our diving boxes and we will be off bothering some fish in a new-to-us lake the weekend after next.

When everything seems to get a bit much, it’s good to remember that there is all this life going on all around us.

*And not helped by the fact that I was the oldest person in the room — not something that has happened to me before. The husband helpfully told me that I had better get used to it as it will be happening more and more. Thanks, I think. But anyway — I saw a raccoon!