Hedgehogs and Poets

Sitting at the dining room table last night desperately trying to finish a commissioned patchwork quilt, I had the patio door open – it having been such an incredibly hot day and a still balmy evening well into the period of darkness.  My attention was piqued by the sound of rustling and I turned in time to see THE hedgehog racing down the patio directly toward the open door.  And I mean racing.  Hedgehogs normally amble.  ‘Snuffling about’ is often used to describe the progress of hedgehogs but this one was definitely on a mission.

As it reached the doormat it swerved right (my left) and presumably shot out under the side gate like squeezed toothpaste bursting into the world.  Gone in a flash.

We throw half a handful of suet pellets onto the lawn with the last light each day – mainly for the crows, but suspect the hedgehog has been dining on suet which appears to result in high octane speeds (and plenty of processed something having been deposited in lumps about the lawn).

Formula One Hedgehog. Super Sonic.

Meanwhile the application of a few braincells to the question of why all the feline visitors stopped at around the time Tigger left us resolved the puzzle.  I only needed to think rationally.  We have had a brickie in fixing a few crumbling brick fence pillars and Mr B had replaced a disintegrating ancient wooden fence panel.  The old one had a hole in it where rotting boards had fallen away.

Two (also rotting) boards were swiftly removed (by Mr B whom I suspect of craving feline company) from a similarly decrepit panel further along and sure enough the neighbourhood felines took less than 18 hours to discover the new hole in the fence despite the dense hedge on the other side.  Mr B got the shock of his life while making his bedtime cuppa last Thursday, to turn and see the Not Tigger ‘doing a Tigger’ on the outside of the kitchen windowsill.

Not Tigger (as earlier reported) is about the same colour as Tigger but there the similarity ends.  He is a blotched Tabby with markings akin to our little Greek friend, Byron – broad stripes that sort of go along his body rather than around it.  We agreed that for our own sanity we couldn’t go on referring to him as ‘Not Tigger’ and as a nod to Byron decided to refer to him by a poet’s name.  Keats was considered (shorter than other famous English candidates) but Mr B preferred Dylan, so Dylan he will be.

I thought Dylan was a rabbit.

Dylan is not an adoption candidate (nor are any of his cousins) but they do like rodenting around the birdfeeders and compost bin, and a hole in the fence seems like a fair exchange for their services in the vermin control department.