Thank you to my wonderful agent, Jane Turnbull and my editor Julie Bailey. Once again, they took a chance on a half-formed idea and gave me the time and space I needed to work with it. Thanks especially to Julie for working so tirelessly to make everything shipshape and on time – I was so pleased to work with you again. Thanks to my patient copy editor, Elizabeth Peters, who asked all the right questions, and to Charlotte Atyeo for proofreading. To my illustrators, Abby Cook and Jasmine Parker, who have brought the book to life, and to Rachel Nicholson, Lizzy Ewer, Katherine Macpherson and Sarah Head at Bloomsbury, who have given my book wings and sent it out into the wide world. This book would be nothing without the amazing work of this team of brilliant women.
Thanks to my fact checkers: Emily Robinson (amphibians), Richard Comont (bumblebees), Richard Fox (1976), Ann Winney (hedgehogs) for your time and advice, and to Alex Lees, Hannah Bourne-Taylor and Susie Howells for making sure what I said about your respective projects was exactly right. Thanks to Choel for letting me write about the hedgehogs. Thanks to the many neighbours for letting me mention them and for Pete and Gayle Foggon at Sompting Wildlife Rescue and Ann Winney at Hurst Hedgehog Haven for trusting me with precious hedgehogs to release into the garden, and for letting me write about them, of course.
Thanks to my gull friends for the laughs. If one good thing has come from the activities of Drone Bastard, it’s been getting to know you.
I am so grateful for Emma and Tosca, who make me laugh, and for the emotional support of friends Andy, Jo, Eli, Becky, Helen and Humey, who were happy to talk, or not talk, about my bloody book. Extra special thanks is due to the wonderful human that is Melissa Harrison, who took time to read the whole manuscript while busy on her own projects – the book is so much better for her input. And to my family: thank you for letting me continue this strand of our story.
This book has been challenging to write, and I wrote myself into many ridiculous dead ends. One day, by chance, Kath Moore phoned me as I was staring out of the window wondering if I should just tell Bloomsbury this had all been a mistake, and said, ‘I want to know what you’re doing.’ I want her to know that those words changed the course of the book and its journey to where we are today. I’m not sure I would have continued writing it had I not picked up the phone.