I’ve had two encounters of the spiky kind in the last year. The most recent, smiling away in the photo, came to me from the lovely Nicky over at Colour it Green, who ran a give-away comp on her blog. Yours truly was the lucky winner and my pincushion is fabulous! You too can have this hodgepig in your life as she sells them from her shop on Etsy.

Hedgehog pincushion (27 June 2011)

T’other encounter took place last August. It was the middle of the night and I was happily asleep when a thumping noise got my attention. It wasn’t loud, just persistent, and seemed to be coming from very close by. I switched on the light and looked for Snipe – she was at the foot of the bed, staring intently at something. Not growling, just fixated.

Still blinking from my rude awakening and the light, my gaze followed hers. There, between my bed and the wall, was a great big hedgehog, determinedly headbutting the bedside table. I looked back at Snipe, gathered my wits, and double checked the ratio of wildlife to humans in my bedroom. Yup, still there.

Snipe relaxed now that I was awake and aware of our intruder and wagged her tail happily, which was of no help to me. I sat in bed for a while longer, wondering how I had managed to spend nearly two-thirds of my life in formal education without ever coming across the solution to what one does when one wakes up to discover a hedgehog in one’s bedroom.

In the end, I used my oven gloves to carefully pick up the big and heavy ball of very sharp spines and gently deposited him/her in the garden, all the time wondering if it was a dream and if so, what on earth my subconscious was regurgitating.

It definitely wasn’t a dream, as s/he made a repeat visit the following night, though at a more sociable time, which meant I was sufficiently with it to deliver a stern lecture on the difference between carpet and grass whilst repeating the oven gloves evacuation procedure.

My spiny friend obviously took note as I haven’t seen any hedgehogs since … well, apart from my pin cushion, obviously.