Bloody Vermin!!

They have ridiculously long legs if you ever get to see them, they're "absolutely adorable" if you listen to the Queen of Night, and "riddled with disease" if you listen to anybody's Mother.  This one... has left a collection of turds all over my pantry floor around the big bag of cat biscuits.

Don't get me wrong.. I thought it was absolutely adorable too a couple of years ago when it started.  Little did I know that that was the thin end of the wedge.

"In summer when the nights are long..." I like to recline on the tattered old couch in what passes for our conservatory, in partial darkness, reading by the light of the bathroom window.  One night, though I had heard scratchings and crunchings previously, I heard a noise and looked over the edge of my book to see a tiny hedgehog pushing its way in through one of the diamond shaped holes in the trellis.  Entranced by the nearness of one nature's little miracles I sat there quietly and watched as, once through, the little darling circumnavigated the conservatory.  Never straying far from the wall, it ambled the longest possible route to the cat's dish. It then pulled itself by the rim of the dish on to tippy toes and poked it's nose down towards the alluring smell of the biscuits.

crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.

Every night in summer the dear little thing would visit.  I got into the habit of leaving small handfuls of cat biscuits on the floor nearer the trellis for it so that it wouldn't have to walk too far. And often as I got up in the night to go to the toilet I would smile to myself  as I heard it through the wall at its dinner

crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.

I remember the last night it came through the trellis too.  I was out reading on the couch again and heard the familiar scrape of spines.  I looked over to see my hedgehog had grown some, and was struggling to force itself through its customary hole like Pooh after eating too much of Rabbit's honey.  Its head and its forelegs were through, and the more it pulled the more balloon shaped the leftover hedgehog mass on the other side became.  Eventually it had to give up, but it soon found another way in now that its legs were long enough for it to climb up the edge of the garden.

Crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.

When a hedgehog eats cat-biscuits it does it much louder than a cat does. It sounds like little shards of pottery breaking in its jaws.  That sound ceased at the end of summer, but returned the next along with my now respectable sized, full-grown hedgehog. My wife began to complain about the little black turds around the floor of the conservatory especially around the cat dish, and sometimes in it.  I had long stopped leaving extra biscuits around for it.

Crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.

Well, summer came again and once again we are enjoying our conservatory.  These days I don't so often sit out there late however.  I'm often inside at the computer of an evening.  With the weather warm however it's easy to leave that door open until the final lockup when I go to bed.

We have two cats.  One for inside and one for outside. 

The inside one is a dainty tortoiseshell female who we have had fixed because we don't like the idea of having kittens. She gets fed in the kitchen in a nice clean pair of bowls and sleeps on the end of our bed keeping our feet warm as her way of saying thanks. The outside one is a longhaired ginger tom who we never got fixed, I guess because we don't mind the idea of other people having kittens if they want them.  He is wild and free and often quite inexplicably soaking wet.  He gets fed in the conservatory, shares with the hedgehog and leaves hair on the old couch there as his way of saying thanks.

Anyway as I was saying I haven't been sitting out late, but I've been inside and leaving the door open till I go to bed.  I've been hearing noises from the kitchen through the wall.  It's not uncommon for the outside cat to come in and investigate the contents of the rubbish bin, especially when we've had chicken for dinner.  So when I heard a scrabbling noise I thought nothing of it.  Poor fellow needs some perks.  Then I heard a familiar noise...

crunch crunch crack crunch CLUNK crunch crackle crunch.

... and I had to see.

I walked out to the kitchen to see an ENORMOUS hedgehog, far too big for its boots sitting in the inside-cat's tiny dish.  When it saw me it shot me a guilty look and leapt out of the biscuit dish and into the water bowl.  Then it gave up and sat there, regarding me.
Now I had no wish, at that time of night to go picking up a large, wet hedgehog. I'm told they're "riddled with disease". So I shooked my head, wagged my finger and left the room, hoping it would see sense and leave of its own accord.   A few minutes later I heard more scrabblings and crept out to see again only to find this enormous ravenous beast nosing its way around the rubbish bin and obviously heading for the bag of biscuits in the open pantry, leaving filthy wet footprints as it went.
This was too much!  I showed it my foot, at which it began curling itself up into a basketball.   Oh no you don't, I thought, and with my foot spun it round on the slippery lino then gingerly presented my toes to its rear.  That was all the encouragement it needed. Showing me the full length of it's ridiculous legs the monster skittered out the kitchen door and back into the night.

But I can tell it's been in since. When I have to wash the dirt out of the cats water bowl. And when I regard the pantry floor. And sometimes in the night I still hear it...

crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.