Hedgehogs and Hibernation

Remember the "Hedgehog in the Greenhouse" saga? No? Well, one of them took up refuge in a plastic bag full of old tea towels, jam packed it full of dead magnolia leaves and hibernated for the winter. I religiously left the greenhouse door open four hedgehog inches all winter so it could get out and forage, and made sure that no one put anything in the greenhouse on top of it and so on.

Last weekend my wife went to clean out the greenhouse.

"I think the hedgehog has died, there's a terrible smell in there"

Ok, I gently pick up the bag so as not to disturb it (just in case...) and begin to remove the leaves very carefully.

"It's buggered off"
"When"
"Well, let's just read the guestbook to see when it signed out shall we?"
"Oh. Well. What's the smell then?"
"Dead leaves."

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