It's the time of year again where public holidays mean nice and very welcome gaps in the work week... that's the case with Thursday this week, and since that is ideal to make it into a super-long weekend, I will be taking Friday off as well. 

On the Monday afterwards, I'll  take off to a workshop and networking meeting, with the goal of making textile research and conservation easier for everybody involved. I'm already looking forward a lot to this, the programme sounds really interesting!

Accordingly, I will be off the blog until Friday next week. 

In the meantime, maybe you'd like to read this article about fetching and retrieval by cats when they are playing! 

Yesterday was too hectic to get a picture in here - but now you are getting a view of the catproofed hedgehog restaurant: 

The stone goes on top of the roof/lid for the night, otherwise at least one of the cats will lift it off. (We saw him trying on one of the videos. Before he gave up on that method and contorted himself in through the door opening.) 

And this is how the inside looks:

I'm still impressed that the cats managed to squeeze around that corner. It's only about 11 or so cm wide, after all. 

The center space should be large enough for two hedgehogs to turn around each other (which should be possible here), and the food houses need two separate entrances so there's always a way to flee, in case there are disagreements about who is supposed to be in there, and who is not. That makes those food houses surprisingly large. Instead of adding the two sewage tube knees, some plans recommend closing off the entrance labyrinth paths on top, making them only about 12 cm in height, so it's more like a tunnel. We considered that option, but went for the knees - as we did not trust the cat burglars to get stopped by a little bit of a height inconvenience.

And yes, what you see in that dish is no more food, and some hedgehog droppings instead. They have a weird way of saying "thank you for the food", those guys! 

After one night of no takers at all for the food, we now can report "Operation Stop The Cat Burglary" a full success. The hedgehog feeding station is cat-proof, probably to the dismay of the two toms who went for self-service, and has been used, as planned, by the little hedgehog.

At least this morning there was no more food on the plate (instead I found a lovingly placed piece of hedgehog shit). And even the camera worked well enough to catch a little glimpse of the prickly little lady entering and leaving her restaurant. 

And now I have to run to the post office (to drop off packed orders) and to the vet (to pick up some meds for Madame, who gets old and now has developed some thyroid issues) and to the Milchhäusla (to get some more milk, and possibly some regional strawberries). Good thing there's such a thing as bicycles!

(I used to walk to the next post drop-off point, but that has closed a while ago, and every other one in the area requires either a longer-than-I-can-afford-on-a-workday walk, or a short ride of the bike.)

 So we made the entrances to the hedgehog restaurant a little smaller... and no, it did not help at all. This is the hungry cat just about to enter the restaurant:

We had the camera set to take a photo every three seconds, but it is a little disagreeable and only shot every seven seconds. So obviously, we missed a lot, and that is the only frame where you can see more than the tip of the tail lying in the entrance. Not a single shot with a hedgehog either.

Which means there's two things on the task list now, one, to add some nice curved tunnel to the entrances, and two, to fiddle with the camera settings again... 

This is, supposedly, a hedgehog feeding station with a cat-proof design. Which means that a hedgehog can enter, and leave, and there's two entrances/exits so if two should happen to go in there at the same time, a route to run away is still open to each of them. (Hedgehogs are not social, as a rule.)

The inside has two partitioning walls so it's like something that dreams of being a labyrinth one day. But, well, you know, it's not complicated enough yet. That is supposed to make it cat-proof, because even if a cat is able to stick their head in, they would not crawl in all the way, with only 10 cm of door height, and then contort themselves around the inner walls to reach the food plate.

Well, well, well. My aunt kindly borrowed us her wildlife camera, and after seeing this:

I'm not so sure anymore about that "cat-proof" thing. The cat goes inside until just the tip of the tail sticks out, and then the data cuts off.

We know that cat, it's a slim, rather young-looking tom with a very beautiful ginger tabby fur. Apparently he's trying to work on the "slim" part with enthusiasm... 

So we'll have to find a way to pimp the cat-proofness. Maybe add something so the entrance is more like a tunnel? That would make slipping inside more awkward.

There's a German saying that goes "Reisen bildet" - travelling will make you more knowledgeable.

Well, this is certainly true for me and this last trip to Switzerland. You see, I have been there before, and I had noticed that the Swiss have different wall outlets for their plugs, but I had only brought the nice slim very versatile "Euro-Stecker" before: 

...and I had never run in any problem with that.

This time, though, I brought my laptop. Which doesn't have the "Euro-Stecker", but the larger, round "Schutzkontakt-Stecker" - and that's a different type. I had assumed that it would also just fit into the outlets, with its two prongs in about the same width and the same constellation as the Euro type, but, alas, the outlets that were available were all a recessed spot. And the form of the recess was, of course, the shape of the normal Swiss plug.

The German Schuko plug is too fat for that. 

So I was dashing off on the quest to find a different cable (since the trefoil connector is the same), but they had none. And then, the technic guy turned up with an adapter. I wasn't in the room at that time, but I imagine the adapter was procured, happily attached, and then it was found that it was what the Swiss call a "Fixadapter".

Which means that it is designed to turn a German-style electrical thingummy into a proper Swiss electrical thingummy. It is to be attached and never ever in the life of the device removed again.

So basically, I left my computer unattended in a Swiss conference room for a few minutes, and it went full-on native! Well, at least the end bit of it did. The one closest to the plug.

Fortunately, this cable is easily replaced (I have a temporary, borrowed replacement as I type this), and it meant that the presentation went well with no fear of running out of battery.

Also it makes for a very funny story, I have learned something (Reisen bildet!), and for my next foray into Switzerland, I have the proper plug!  

You know this thing where you have a schedule roughly planned for a specific day,  or some specific days, and you know from experience that you will probably not be able to finish everything, much less do some extra task? And yet somehow you still believe you will do that extra task anyways?

That's exactly what happened to yesterday's blog post, aka "the extra task". The car had to go for a checkup, and I was going to see my parents and help a little with a few things, and as expected the day flew by without me getting around to blogging. I could have known. 

And now you are getting a blog post to let you know that I will be properly away for a few days - and I'm not planning to make the same mistake again right away. I will be off to give a workshop for museum volunteers in beautiful Switzerland... and I will be back here on the blog on Wednesday. 

While I'm away, on Sunday the 18th, it's International Museum Day, so you might find something interesting special museum event in your area. There's a (German language) website with an interactive map here. I hope you find something, and have fun!