Our very own spiny mammal

By the pots of Dahlias and Petunias a breathless hedgehog was rescued by the old git and our pretty neighbour. Into a cardboard box it went, with a saucer of milk and some cat food. The hedgehog rescuers arrived and the pretty neighbour, wearing thick rubber gloves, carried the poorly little grunter to the rescue van.
If it gets better we get to keep him/her in our hedgehog house which the ‘oosbind built a few months ago.
Its behind the studio where, assorted dogs and cats have been buried.
Hedgehogs are spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog, I’m told by Wikipedia.
Now in the middle of this drama the plumber came. We can’t use the sink in the bathroom because two washers have worn so every time we brush our teeth, wash our face or flannel our Finnoula’s the water drips through the ceiling into the kitchen. The Observer magazine has been absorbing the drips. We have to wait till a washer arrives from a supplier somewhere in Eastern Europe. Thank heavens this has happened before Brexit, Lord knows but life is tricky enough isn’t it?
And on top of all that our pretty neighbour located a bees nest in their roof. Out came an expert and smoked out a whole colony of buzzing bees.
All quiet on The South Eastern front until the pretty neighbour and her very tall husband and cherubic child heard;
Drip
Drip
Drip
Well bugger me if those bumbly bees hadn’t gone and made a load of honey which is now dripping, deliciously all over the pretty neighbour’s cotton sheets.
We don’t live out of London we love out-out, which means we have different bus stops, rhododendron hedges, 15th century pubs and hedgehogs.
Time it was though, wasn’t it, that we all saw a Tiggywinkle rooting around the hedgerows.
I pity my dawter’s generation who will have to clean up the plastic, grow more trees, stop the oil, harness solar power, bring down the American penal system, build more schools, save the hospitals, repair the roads, re-nationalise the railways, save the oceans, control the internet, vote in an honest PM, build more houses, bring down the alt/right, give artists a decent living wage, grow organic food, teach dancing in schools, abolish university fees, stop the arms trade, legalise pot, make breastfeeding perfectly legal and do it all in 13years before we become a little brown ball spinning round in a space that President Shlumph has already got his beady eyes on.
Of course I haven’t stopped fighting, but the energy this turn around is gonna take is more than I can do on my own. From the cradle to the graveyard shift I have tried to be of use. To be effective. But I am considered, mad, bad and pretty much unemployable.
I spend a good deal of time coming up with ideas, then falling at the first hurdle because they are all considered too radical.
Shall I give up? Not on your Nelly. Whilst I’ve still got teeth in my head, a jolly good hairdresser and the ability to do the downward dog I shall be mumbling and poking my nose in, just like our dear old hedgehog.
Send it your healing love if you like.