Over the years I’ve found myself dealing with many kinds of nocturnal visitors. Rats, bats, ram raiders and, when we lived in South Africa, honey badgers wolfing down birthday cake in the kitchen. Last night’s commotion began just before midnight – a cacophony of snorting and snuffling, huffing and puffing, wheezing and whining. I could hardly believe it. Wild boar in deepest Yorkshire?

I crept out the back door. Round the side of the house, I approached cautiously, only to find not hogs but hedgehogs. Two of them were facing each other in what looked like a stand-off. Suddenly, a bout of head-butting and chasing.