Shed of the year 2024, Sponsored by 
Over the course of this year I have transformed my shed from a dilapidated wreck, into a palace of a home for ferrets, complete with outside run, digging sandpit and plenty of toys and tubes to enrich their lives. As a tech reporter and educator, I have built the run around 6 HD day/night vision cameras, beaming the activity from within to Youtube and Twitch. With the incredible amount of footage captured of the ferrets up close and personal during their daily activity I also make Youtube content aiming to educate and entertain about all things ferret and tech. Now that lockdown restrictions are ending I plan on completing my goal of offering a home to 4 more rescue ferrets that might otherwise struggle to find a forever home. You can follow all their stories, and mine, in the weekly vlog recorded in the shed, packed full of ferret clips and chat about pets and tech.
I have been a technology reporter and educator for 25 years, appearing on weekly BBC tech show Click for 14 years. But when the pandemic hit all my freelance work vanished over two weeks. While out for a lockdown walk to ponder my existence, I found a sick, abandoned ferret and took it home to call the RSPCA. I have long been a partnered twitch gaming streamer and was already thinking I could use streaming as a way to reach my audience more directly while I waited the pandemic out. But I didn't really want to do gaming. While I waited for the RSPCA to come and collect the ferret I found, I did some research to try and make it more comfortable. In doing this I realised what a wonderful, fun and curious creature the ferret is! It was then that the idea struck me - I would transform the shed (installed by the previous owners to house guineapigs, but for 12 years since I moved in just a home for spiders and junk) into a secure and stimulating enclosure for unwanted ferrets, giving them the love and playfulness they deserve. It sounds crazy I know, but I used to be a veterinary nurse before taking a role in the media as a kid it was always my dream to work with animals or become a writer. Now, at the ripe old age of 52, I have achieved both those ambitions by creating FerretTubeTV. The ferrets are a fantastic engagement tool for teaching virtually, which has been such a challenge I see the kids having to cope with during lockdown. We've already made a collection of social media tips and guides for #SaferInternetDay, organised by charity, Childnet. And our goal is to continue producing guides and tips for people who would like to take up live live-streaming themselves, as we build the channel https://ferrettube.live and document the stories of our adorable residents at the Forever Home for Found Ferrets.To help you understand the vision, I have made a special video for this entry, which is linked in this page. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.
