What the Heck???

Kate Walker sent me an email yesterday with photos in it documenting the first encounter between her Maine Coon kitten (now a gorgeous teenager) Flora (aka Princess Flora Flooziebelle) meeting her first hedgehog. She's also just written the account up on her blog.

You may remember the hedgehog family who lives at the bottom of Kate's garden.

I christened them The Hecks after a series of Yorkshire villages we'd passed through the afternoon I arrived for my last visit in Sept 2006. The villages were called Great Heck and Little Heck and there may have been a Lesser Heck and even a Really Big Heck. One wonders what Heck meant in the days when villages got their names.

Anyway, the description seemed to fit the hedgehog family, who turned out for cat crunchies after dark that evening and allowed themselves to be photographed. They looked like a series of nestling Russian dolls -- albeit prickly ones.

As Sir Sidney, Flora's big brother, tends to give hedgehogs a wide berth, and Dylan (aka Dyl the Vil) has nothing good to say about them (not surprising as Dyl rarely has much good to say about most folks, except electricians with big hands -- and Bridget Coady who is His Favorite Person In The World), it was a surprise to see Flora and her new friend.

Apparently she wasn't quite sure what this new amazing creature was -- especially because it was Eating Her Food!

So she got closer, tentatively touched it with a paw, edged a bit closer with her nose (ouch!) and finally just decided it wasn't worth bothering with.

Rolling around on the ground and basking in the sun was far preferable.

It's an amazing world, as Flora is discovering. Glad to see you and Littlest Heck are becoming pals, Flora.

Enjoy your new friend!