Page 12 of The Wisteria Tree Cottage

He watched her little green online light go out. Now for once that felt like a positive exchange.

CHAPTEREIGHT

When Meadow and Star walked into the restaurant the next morning, only Bear was sitting there by himself eating his breakfast as he typed away on his mini laptop. Their breakfasts were normally early, the guests would all trickle through much later.

Meadow and Star went up to the counter to get their food, chatting briefly with Alex, their chef, and then went to join Bear at the table.

‘Bear, I’ve been thinking,’ Star said, plonking herself down next to Bear as Meadow went and sat opposite them. She watched as Bear turned to face Star, giving her full and immediate attention.

‘What you been thinking about?’ Bear said.

‘I was watchingHedgerowslast night and—’

Bear let out a little gasp. ‘You watched it without me?’

Star grinned. ‘It was last week’s episode, the one we’ve already watched together. I wanted to watch it again because I love the badgers. I think we should set up some webcams in the wood so we can capture the different animals that live in the forest, especially at night. Just like they do inHedgerows.’

Meadow smiled. That TV programme,Hedgerows and Woodlands, had been wonderful for Star. She had always been interested in the animals that lived in the wood but the show had developed in her this huge passion and excitement for them. There were animals featured on that programme that Star nor Meadow had never seen before. The best thing was that Bear watched it with them and it was a joy to see Bear and Star talk about it with so much enthusiasm.

‘We can totally do that,’ Bear said. ‘It might be a good thing to feature on our website too so people feel like Wishing Wood will allow them to get back to nature. But we need to figure out where the best place to set up the webcams would be first. How should we do that?’

Meadow smiled. He would make such a good dad one day. He would totally know how to find the best place to put the webcams, but he wanted Star to come up with the ideas to push her and challenge her.

Star thought about it for a moment. ‘We can put food out in different places in the wood and see where the most food gets eaten.’

Bear grinned. ‘Great idea. What kind of food should we put out?’

‘Fruits and vegetables for the herbivores like the rabbits, squirrels and voles. Cat or dog food for foxes, badgers and hedgehogs, though they will probably eat the fruit too,’ Star said, knowledgeably.

‘OK, great, we can set up a few feeding stations with different food around the wood,’ Bear said.

‘And fresh water too,’ Star said.

‘Good idea.’

‘And we need to put some fruit and vegetables away from the meat too, so that the voles are not eating next to where the foxes are eating, otherwise the voles might become fox dinner too,’ Star said.

‘That’s true,’ Bear said, solemnly. ‘I’ll order some webcams.’

‘Can we have webcams in the trees too so we can catch birds like owls and woodpeckers?’

‘That’s a bit more tricky, birds don’t tend to sleep in the same place every night and they don’t use a nest either, apart from when there are chicks. And we won’t see any chicks at this time of year, except maybe with some pigeons,’ Bear said. ‘We can put some nestboxes up and put webcams inside but I don’t think we’ll see much action there at this time of year. I can certainly put a few webcams up some trees to see what we capture. We might get lucky.’

‘Can I just remind you that any webcams that get put up can’t be recording or pointing towards any treehouses,’ Meadow said, with her manager hat on.

Bear grinned. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Why not?’ Star asked. ‘There are animals living in those trees too.’

‘Because we might see naked people,’ Bear said, honestly, and Meadow laughed when Star pulled a face.

‘Ewww.’

‘Exactly,’ Bear said,

‘And because our guests have a right to privacy,’ Meadow said.

‘OK, I’ll get some food today,’ Bear said. ‘And tonight before bedtime, me and you can go out into the woods and lay it out for any animals. And then tomorrow after breakfast we can go and see where the most food was eaten.’

---