Week 38 DD

[The Doctor]

I liked the Batman that looks like it's a robot and turns into something, maybe a bat!

-Ralph

[Bogatan]

Unpleasant as it is signing on is actually something that needs to be done as it covers national insurance contributions or some such. Mum works in payroll so knows these things and insist on telling me.

I signed on on Monday.I'm hoping I can get some money out of them for a refresher course of some kind, but as I'm likely to be on it for at most 12 weeks as Asda will probably have me back for Christmas that seems unlikely. My uncle managed it but he'd been signing on for almost 6 months by then.

Andy

[blueshift]

One of my biggest regrets with being unemployed was not signing on. It isn't nice, but it is better than spending all your hard earned cash

[Hero]

Nigel RULES.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I have walked home along the same roads most days for seven years now. Walked the same roads over a thousand times. Only this evening, the N+1th time, was different. Today as I walked home I came across a hedgehog wandering around on the pavement in broad daylight.

This was the pavement of a busy road, adjacent to a small park (containing only lawns and flowerbeds). I watched it for a minute or so until a woman only just avoided stepping on it, then picked it up and put it in the park, in one of the flowerbeds. It promptly wandered out into the open onto the grass, oblivious to all the people and dogs and so forth. I picked it up again and moved it to a hedgerow but it came out onto the path again.

I couldn't leave it like this, and was sure it would be out on the road again shortly and squashed flat. Rightly or wrongly (for all I know I was breaking up a family), I picked it up again and carried it the best part of a mile to the middle of the woods in the local nature reserve near my house. It curled up for most of the journey, but always with its little eyes open, and for the last part it put up its head (which I had been stroking with my finger) and sniffed around.

Anyway, it walked along the path in the woods for a bit, then wandered off into the undergrowth, startling a cat which ran away. And that was the last I saw of it. I've no idea if it'll be happier or not in the woods, with the rabbits and dormice, than on the city streets, but all those children's storybooks leave me feeling that it's where it belongs. It didn't crap or pee on my hands anyway. I wish it well!

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

Well done. Have some karma Martin.

My back garden ends up being something of a hedgehog thoroughfare which pleases me no end. I've a lot of time for hedgehogs. Susie is fascinated by them/but also quite scared of them so she thankfully doesn't try to eat them, just wonders what they are and what they do.

Andy

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Ta. It's actually only the second time I've seen a hedgehog. The first was when I was at uni, walking home at night after much alcohol along a road on the outskirts of Coventry (practically in the countryside), when I saw this dark shape moving on the grass. As I recall I stopped to watch it for some time, and made it curl up once or twice, purely for the purposes of furthering science, you understand.

What I learnt then and today is there is no such thing as a startled hedgehog. There are only hedgehogs walking and hedgehogs curled up. They don't do surprise or fear, they just peacefully accept what befalls them, even if it is humans interfering with their plans.

Hmmm. There are also squashed hedgehogs, I suppose.

Here's a proper one for the Hub to contemplate. (Not mine.)



Martin

[The Doctor]

Sept 17, 2009 11:15:08 GMT blueshift said:

One of my biggest regrets with being unemployed was not signing on. It isn't nice, but it is better than spending all your hard earned cash

Hey, you know what finally turned me? The thought that the Dalek War DVD boxset is out next month and I had no money for it! The Government can pay*! I need my Pertwee fix.

-Ralph

*Unless I'm in a job of course

[Deleted]

When it comes to wildlife my back garden is occasionally a visiting ground for sparrow hawks. It's nice seeing them once in a while but my father has an aviary with birds in it and sparrow hawks have been known to kill them on occasion.

[legios]

Martin, have some karma in honour of your kindness to passing Hedgehogs.

I don't see many of them around here sadly. The only mammalian wildlife I have seen in this vicinity recently have been a few foxes and the occasional squirrel. Although my neighbour informed me that I did have a hedgehog take refuge under my shed one evening that I wasn't in. Apparently it was trying to elude a fox that had decided it looked like a mobile snack - and the hedgehog did the math and realised that it could fit under my shed whilst the fox couldn't. The hedgehog apparently won that encounter by virtue of better use of the terrain.

I do like the idea that hedgehogs are a fairly sanguine bunch. I guess when you are spiky all the way around if you roll into a ball you can afford to figure that either that will put off the monster or it won't.....

Karl

[The Doctor]

I have met many hedgehogs in my time. Very curious creatures.

My mother apprantly sponsors one which lives up north.

-Ralph

[grahamthomson]

Do we start calling Martin "The Hedgehog Whisperer" now?

When we lived in Germany, every Autumn there was an abundance of hedgehogs. We kept a battery of cardboard boxes and blankets for any "strays" as we'd always find a few nestled at the front door of a morning.

[Deleted]

I live in a small village, so theres loads of Hedgehogs round here, and deer and bunnies

[Hero]

What was it like picking the hedgehog up, Martin? I always thought they might be a bit prickly to handle.

I rescued a hedgehog during my school days from being used as a football by a group of kids. I only discovered it when I spotted a small crowd of mainly boys from older years gathered round it with a few "kill it!" suggestions being said amongst the group.

I managed to hustle in and pick the hedgehog up with my school jumper and took it to the Science block, avoiding pursuers and dinner ladies blocking the entrance along the way. Fortunatley I found a caring enough teacher who took the hedgehog nestling inside a pullout lockertray in his car to somewhere safer down Blaise woods.

===KEN

[karla]

OMG hedgehogs are so messy (but cute)
we randomly got 1 a few months ago wandering through our garden, scared my mum with his grunting.
so we put food out, bt not bread and milk as that kills them......apparently
a small bowl of mealworms and sunflowerseeds, he ate most of it so we carried on everynight.
then we got a bigger hedgehog who pushed the smaller one out of the way constantly, so 2 bowls of food went out.
we then got another small hedgehog followed by a big one. Not sure if they're are family, but its so nice seeing them makes me happy that they're still alive

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Nah, Ken, it's porcupines that have sharp prickles, not hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are more like bristles on a stiff hairbrush. It was fine to carry in my bare hands.

To perhaps negate some of that karma, I must confess I am eating duck's legs tonight. But they are Freedom Foods duck legs.

Martin

[Deleted]

When I was young my parents warned me never to pick up a hedgehog because apparently they all carry fleas. But then my parents said that about all wild animals as well!

[Hero]

I see about the hedgehog and prickles. I used the school jumper to carry mine in case, but also because I didn't want to get human scent on it (not that using clothing would be any better). My jumper didn't have any fleas afterwards though

As far as any other animal rescue goes, the cats have not been bringing any winged mice (bats) in lately, but I'm on the lookout. Slo-worms are still a favourite capture at the moment.

===KEN

[karla]

don't ye'd thinkin ye'd be touchin' me booty AGAIN
WALK THE PLANK

where is me grog? I NEED ME GROG?!?

[Dezzeh]

Shiver me timbers!

[Hero]

I already have a pirate accent

[Dave]

You fight like a dairy farmer.

[grahamthomson]

How appropriate, you fight like a cow.

[karla]

I am rubber, you are glue!

[blueshift]

I helped out at a comic convention down in Somerset today! I got to sit at the door taking entrance money. And giving free copies of blackest night 0 to all the little kids!

I ended up getting some dr who dvds, a captain britan trade, and a load of packs of complete runs for a pound each. Ultimate Iron Man 2, Supreme Power (HUR HUR), L.A.W. (HUR HUR), DCU: Decisions (HUR HUR), Maelstrom (that was 50p), the Nighthawk mini and some Brave&Bold

Most of the above will probably be awful, but hey! I have a long train journey tomorrow!

[The Doctor]

Got a phone call for a job interview next Wednesday. Not at all sure about the job, especially the working hours but I'll give it a go.

-Ralph

[Hero]

Found another bat today, but it was too late for the poor critter.

===KEN