Jill Sparrow

Of course it's not alright. We regard ourselves as vastly superior to cats and other animal predators but we're tottering on the edge of annihilation because, for all our supposed intellect and logic, we're behaving like barbarians.

Basil. Oregano, lemon balm. All easily grown at home.

Just like us.

I never use salt and don't like pepper. I'll substitute herbs instead. Just as tasty.

The only changes I would make to that are to lose the salt and pepper and substitute granary bread for wholemeal. Otherwise, yummy!

Years ago, when I worked at 24 Low Pavement, some of us grew tomato plants in pots placed in front of the large, Georgian windows and overlooking the garden at the rear. They did well there as they got lots of sunlight. At lunchtimes, fresh tomatoes, straight from the plants tasted very good. There is nothing to compare with the taste and smell of homegrown tomatoes.

That's fine by me. It's only a body. It isn't really me!

Hedgehogs are listed on schedule 6 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981), which makes it illegal to kill or capture them with certain methods. Humans, on the other hand, are highly edible. Apparently, they taste like pork. I'm a vegetarian and have far too much respect for animals to eat them but if anyone wants to eat their fellow man, that's fine by me. After all, man seems to subject his fellow man to just about every other indignity and cruelty he can think of, so why not eat him? It was, for many years, rumoured that Captain James Cook RN was eaten by the Hawaiian Islan

I tried some last year, Rog. They didn't seem keen and opted for their mixture of cat biscuits and mealworms.

Yes @MRS Bit was a good night for hedgehogs. Mine were very hungry and scoffing kitten biscuits. Lovely to hear the crunch of hogs enjoying their food.

Friends in the King's Lynn area of Norfolk report seeing them quite regularly.

Yes, I hear they are quite widespread but I hadn't seen one before.

Ah, Audrey is one of my favourite people, ever. As a child and teenager, my sister looked very like her. I got heartily sick of people telling my mother how pretty she was! There was a special aura about Audrey. For anyone who cares to look into her background, she did not have an easy life and suffered horrors during the war years when she and many others almost starved to death.

Sadly, I saw one lying dead at the side of the road as I drove past, quite close to home last week.

I had a peacock visit my garden regularly when I lived in Brinsley. I named him Percy. Percy the peacock. He was quite friendly but could never be persuaded to display his tail feathers for me. I just wasn't the sort of female he was trying to impress, I suppose. As a child, I remember the peacock at The Arboretum. He was a real exhibitionist and fanned his tail for anyone and everyone but, even as a child, I didn't like the fact that he was caged.