This time it was a hedgehog, on absurdly long legs, running across the lane at Orcop, chased by two carrion crows, baying for blood. It was a valiant creature, only three inches or so long and a perfect miniature of Mrs Tiggy Winkle. It ran for its life, and being outnumbered and considerably outsized was athletic and impressive in its efforts. I stopped the camper, noted the exact position of the hedge hog on the road and and picked up the little brown ball of pins, carefully. I phoned my friend Hugh Warwick, who has had lifelong love of the prickly fellows, and recently published The Hedghog Dilemma. We debated its chances.
The road was in a kind of trench, the ground height being above the tarmac by about three foot. The hedge towered above us, another eight foot, thick and inpenetrable. Beyond was a field of grasses, in full bloom, hayfever central. I nosed around, looking for mum and nest, or siblings, seeking beneedled creatures in a living haystack.
I had a choice, release the baby hedgehog on one side of the road or the other, hoping it would be reunited with mum, or 'rescue' it, a difficult option because always, always, animals are better at being mummy's to their offspring than humans are. I called too, the Wildlife Hospital at Gloucester. Something was wrong for this little hog to be wandering the by ways of Britain in board daylight. Between us, and between moving the car out of the way of irritated drivers, we made the executive decision that her best chances of survival were in my care.
So nestled in my airing cupboard is another ancient creature of the night to add to my collection. Hope, as the children have named her, has been checked over by Maureen. local hedgehog rehabilitation expert from Ross-on-Wye, and is in good health. She goes from strength to strength eating Hill's Science Diet cat food, a luxury meat mousse which she laps fervently with her long tongue. In between meals, she sleeps tucked up in a fleece bedding.
Hedgehogs are officially the cutest animals in the world.
Sasha x
